


The Cuckoo

by Readingrat



Series: Kelpie AU [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-19
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 07:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 113,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1337494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Readingrat/pseuds/Readingrat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Wilson opts not to have his cancer treated, Cuddy enlists House aka Pete’s help. Pete’s methods, however, are as drastic as ever and in the end everyone pays heavily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Departure and Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Friendship  
> Rating: teen  
> Setting: Sequel to The Kelpie, set in the same AU, diverges from canon at the end of S7.  
> Characters: G. House, L. Cuddy, J. Wilson, Rachel Cuddy. No pairings, H/Cu UST.  
> Length: heading towards 120 k, I think.  
> Warning: If you haven’t read The Kelpie, this fic will be incomprehensible! 
> 
> Many thanks to Menolly for beta-ing this fic and providing helpful suggestions!

**Christmas 2015**

_At first everything goes smoothly. Wilson, Cuddy and Rachel arrive ridiculously early at the airport, a good thing considering the throngs milling around trying to make a run for warmer climes. Cuddy has everything under control, from the check-in (organising special permission to take Rachel's wheelchair right up to the airplane) through jumping the queues at each of the three security checks. Nevertheless, getting Rachel and her wheelchair through security is no fun whatsoever; does security think Cuddy looks like a suicide bomber prepared to blow up her child in order to make an obscure political point?_

_Wilson had done a few flights with House after the infarction and had soon decided that unpleasant as road trips with House were, they were infinitely preferable to being cooped up with him in a floating cigar box that had no escape route whatsoever. Unlike House, Rachel doesn't insist on pissing off ground staff or flight attendants before they've as much as taken off, and unlike House, she doesn't need to prove her independence by refusing all help – she's fine with him carrying her the last few steps on board and into her seat. But that's where positive comparisons between Rachel and House end. Rachel is as easily bored as House, but with fewer means of distraction. (He can't really suggest to Cuddy that Rachel should pop a Vicodin and then chase it down with a few shots of bourbon to keep her quiet.) The on-flight selection of children's movies is limited, and Rachel has seen them all already. She's tired and cranky, but can't find a comfortable sleeping position._

_And then she needs the restroom. No problem, Wilson says, he'll carry her, and Cuddy can take over once they get there. And it is no problem – until they get there and Rachel sees the small cubicle that she and Cuddy are supposed to squeeze themselves into so that Cuddy can catheterise her._

" _I can't – not in there!" she whines, refusing to enter. She'll wait till they reach London, she says. Cuddy tries to point out that they won't arrive for another eight hours, but it's no use. Rachel, who has never flown distances that take longer than two hours, can't fathom what that means and remains obdurate. So they carry her back to her seat._

" _She has claustrophobia," Cuddy says. That's not really surprising, considering that she was buried under that ceiling for almost an hour before the EMT managed to get her out. "It's been a lot better lately, but I guess it isn't good enough for airplane restrooms yet." Well, that kinda sucks._

_As the next hour progresses, Rachel squirms and fidgets, whines and moans, but resolutely insists that all this is in no way connected to the increasing pressure in her bladder. Finally Cuddy grabs her and drags her to the bathroom again. Rachel loses it completely in the cubicle, resulting in the disaster that Cuddy was hoping to avoid._

_Luckily she has got a change of clothes in her hand luggage. The cabin crew doesn't want them to use the galley to get Rachel changed 'for hygienic reasons', but Cuddy has got them beaten in a trice, giving them her best I'm-head-administrator-so-don't-mess-with-me_ shpiel _._

_Four hours later they're headed for the bathroom again, Cuddy giving Rachel pep talks, promising rewards, etc. The people seated next to the facility give them dire looks, which Cuddy ignores. Wilson finds this somewhat harder, especially when Rachel throws a tantrum right outside the bathroom. Cuddy finally plonks her on the ground and sits down beside her._

_She blows the hair out of her face, takes a deep breath and says, "The galley it is, then."_

_The attendant is so dumb as to start a discussion on whether the galley is an appropriate place to catheterise a paraplegic …._

_When they reach Heathrow Airport, House isn't waiting for them despite his assurance that he'll pick them up, and his cell goes to voicemail at once. Cuddy suggests a cab, but Wilson, mindful of the advice in his travel guide –_ Don't dream of trying to drive around London in a car during rush hour! _– and noting that their hotel is situated on the line which services the airport, makes a strong case for taking the Underground._

" _It'll be a lot faster," he says. Since everyone is pretty much frazzled and sleep-deprived, this argument carries some weight._

" _Why aren't we staying with Pete?" Rachel asks._

" _His apartment in London is too small," Cuddy explains._

" _He says he lives in a Cupboard Over The Stairs," Wilson says jokingly. But even if House had a place the size of Buckingham Palace, he'd probably prefer them somewhere else._

_Wilson's travel guide_ doesn't _mention that you shouldn't dream of embarking on the Underground with a wheelchair during rush hour either, and although it remarks on the 'quaint, somewhat antiquated escalators' at the Underground station near their hotel, it fails to warn about the flight of six steps between platform and escalator. Cuddy is not amused, not when they have three suitcases, a wheelchair, and a child to get up the stairs and can leave neither baggage nor child unattended. It's a bit like that brain teaser where you have to get a wolf, a goat, and a cabbage across the river in a rowing boat that'll only take one at a time, without either of the two left back on the shore being gobbled up by the other. Wilson, after juggling Rachel and one of the suitcases up the stairs, manages to keep the girl amused with the brain teaser while Cuddy lugs up the last suitcase and the wheelchair. Needless to say, Cuddy isn't particularly interested in hearing how one saves the cabbage from getting eaten by the goat._

" _The wolf eats the boatman, the goat pokes a hole in the boat with its horns, the cabbage floats down the river, and I murder Pete. Problem solved!" she mutters as they ride up the escalator._

_When they get to the hotel Cuddy collapses on her bed, saying she is not to be disturbed for the next twelve hours. "I hate the Underground and I never want to see the inside of an airplane again," she says._

" _Me neither," Rachel concurs cheerfully. "Mom, I need the bathroom!"_

* * *

**Four months later**

"Passengers for British Airways flight BA 0142 to London Heathrow are requested to proceed to the departure area."

Wilson stood up and picked up his cabin baggage, giving Cuddy a lopsided smile. "Well, thanks for bringing me," he said.

Cuddy rose too. "No problem," she said. "Have a good time. And … give Pete my love."

Her hesitation didn't escape Wilson's notice. "Sure you don't want to come?"

Cuddy gave a little embarrassed laugh. "Not this time. Maybe next time." At Wilson's quizzical look she added, "I can't just up and go at a moment's notice."

"I gave you six weeks' notice," Wilson pointed out. "You were there every few weeks last year."

"Are you interrogating me?" Cuddy countered.

"No, no," Wilson hastened to reassure her. "I … I don't want House to feel abandoned. It's been difficult for him, adjusting to his new – old – identity. He's taking a few days off to travel with me, but then he's hiring his new team, and I'm pretty sure he could use both our help."

Cuddy sighed, tugging at a stray lock of hair. "It's not all that easy. I can't ask Julia to take Rachel anymore, and I don't have anyone else with who I can leave her for more than a night at a time."

"I thought you and Julia were okay again?" Wilson said.

"We are," Cuddy admitted, "but we have a sort of understanding that I won't use her as a babysitter in order to keep in contact with Pete. She accepts that she can't stop me from seeing him, but she doesn't want to enable me either. My mom and I are not on speaking terms, though." She didn't seem particularly cut up about her mother's embargo.

Wilson wasn't really surprised to hear that. If anything, he'd been surprised at how quickly Cuddy's family had swung around from 'Stay out of our lives!' to 'Your well-being is our primary concern, no matter what you do.' In his own family concerns had never been voiced openly; instead they had festered forever under the surface, poisoning all interaction. Ultimately, he'd felt better avoiding his family than trying to survive hours of unspoken recriminations and diffuse resentments. But if Cuddy's administrative style was anything to go by, then she'd been brought up to deal with raised voices and tempers that flared quickly only to die down again just as rapidly.

"So bring Rachel along. There are still tons of sights to be seen in and around London," Wilson suggested.

"Bring her along? Take her out of school, drag her on a long journey that's ruinous for everyone's nerves, then try to get her in and around the sights, and all that for what? I'm fine staying here while you keep in touch and do your 'friend' thing with him."

He examined her expression as closely as politeness would allow, but she seemed to mean it. It wasn't that he blamed her for not wanting to take Rachel to England again. Enlightened though he was from the years spent trying to make House's life as normal as possible, he hadn't quite anticipated the difficulties involved in travelling with a child like Rachel.

"And you and House?" Wilson probed.

Cuddy gave him the kind of smile that acknowledged his concern, but effectively told him not to pry. "We're fine," she said. She peered deliberately at the departure screen where a green light was flashing next to the BA flight to Heathrow. "Shouldn't you be going?"

Noting the deflection, Wilson supposed he should let it rest. And he would have, if there were the slightest likelihood of House answering his questions. But there wasn't. He put a sympathetic hand on Cuddy's arm. "These things take time, Cuddy. And House has never been quick to change the status quo or adjust to new circumstances. Believing that a week's visit at Christmas would straighten things out between you was very optimistic, don't you think?"

"Wilson, you were there with me at Christmas. This has got nothing to do with 'change' or 'straightening things out'. And if he's adjusting to anything, it isn't to _me_."

Wilson frowned. The subtext was in some dialect that he didn't comprehend; he'd need the annotated version to understand it.

Cuddy rolled her eyes at his perplexed expression. "The Christmas do at Guy's Hospital? The psychiatrist?"

Wilson racked his memory and came up with a face and the vague memory of a name: Gail Something-or-other. Farnhill? "You mean the one who came to our table? She and House barely talked. They sniped at each other."

"Wilson, you're blind as a bat."

"Did I miss something?" Wilson said, politely incredulous.

"He was smitten," Cuddy said baldly.


	2. Pizza and Probability

**Christmas 2015**

" _Any plans for this evening?" Cuddy asks casually._

_House shrugs and looks at Wilson, who stares at Cuddy trying to read the subtext. Does she want him to mind Rachel while she gets some time alone with House to sort things out with him? She and House are engaged in a stand-off that he can't quite decipher. It's like the complicated dance they'd engaged in for years at PPTH, only without the spark and the banter._ That _had been the tango; this is the minuet. Not that he minds: he is all for them not being too friendly as long as they don't slip back into that miserable unease that reigned in the weeks following the disaster at the PPTH anniversary gala. So, while he doesn't mind babysitting Rachel_ per se _, clearing obstacles out of Cuddy's path isn't on his agenda._

" _I thought we could stay in and watch a movie with Rachel," he says diplomatically._

" _Ellie, Baz, and John want to come to London to meet up with us," Cuddy explains with a side-glance at House. "I thought we could have dinner with them somewhere."_

_House is gazing at Cuddy with the look of quizzical admiration that he reserves for occasions when people best him. "And they know you are here because?" he asks._

" _Because I friended Baz on Facebook ages ago, and I informed him that I was coming to London," Cuddy says, her expression daring him to object._

_House pretends to be outraged. "That's cyber-stalking!"_

" _Feel free to get a restraining order," Cuddy counters._

_House changes tack. "Who says I want to spend the evening with them?" he asks._

_Cuddy leans back, smiling evilly. "That's okay; you don't have to come along. You can spend the evening with Rachel instead, while I introduce Wilson to your friends and gossip with them." The words_ 'about you' _hang unspoken in the air._

_House folds. "Okay, but I get to choose the grub house."_

" _Sure."_

_Wilson deems it is safe to walk between the enemy lines now that fire has ceased. "Who are Ellie, John and Bass?"_

" _Baz," House corrects absently. "My former boss."_

" _You – have a former boss who wants to eat with you?"_

" _I have former bosses who …," House leers._

" _Pete!" Cuddy warns, glancing over at Rachel, who is luckily occupied in playing a run-and-jump game that Wilson installed for her on his iPad._

_Wilson breathes an inner sigh of relief when they arrive at the venue House has chosen, an Italian restaurant not too far from their hotel. Given House's reluctance to mingle his past life with his present one, there was a good chance that he'd choose some awful tourist trap just to ensure that all conversation would be nipped in the bud. Or, conversely, that he'd opt for an upbeat establishment that would have Cuddy tearing out her hair within half an hour, stressed out at failing to get Rachel to behave in a socially acceptable manner. Rachel regards the food on her plate as legitimate material for art projects and considers silverware a waste of time._

" _In India," she informed Wilson haughtily on occasion, "_ everyone _eats with their fingers. Rajesh said so!"_

_Cuddy vacillates between considering it a 'phase' that will pass and bribing Rachel into superficial compliance with the strictures of Western society. House, needless to say, eggs Rachel on whenever he can._

_House's English friends (Wilson still has to get his mind around the concept of House having more than one friend at a time) are half an hour late, which gives rise to an animated discussion on rush hour around London in general and the number of construction sites on the M4 in particular, neither of which Wilson is particularly familiar with. Nevertheless, the conversation gives him ample opportunity to survey the odd bunch House associates with in Bristol. They are as ill assorted as his notorious Princeton poker pals, probably because they are chosen according to the same random mechanisms that House applied back then._ And _they are as scrupulously uninterested in House's personal life as the poker group was: House's explanation that Wilson is a former colleague is accepted without any question or comment. The only one who displays a flash of interest is the short teacher called Ellie, who risks a sideway glance at House. No one asks the obvious question, which is where and when they were colleagues. Nor does anyone look the least bit surprised or bemused by Rachel's disability, so Cuddy must have primed them well._

_They make it to the main course before House's cell phone rings. He doesn't bother to excuse himself or leave the table; his only concession to manners is tipping back his chair as though to indicate that he'd get up if it weren't such a bother._

" _Yeah?" he says. Then he listens for a few moments. "Negative? What did you perform the ELISA on? … No, it's not obvious – it could also have been a semen sample."_

_The others at the table stare at him. Wilson flushes; Cuddy smiles her administrator smile._

" _We're really lucky with the weather – I was told that London can be very rainy around Christmas," she says to no one in particular. It has the desired effect of drawing the three Brits' attention away from House for the moment – references to the weather apparently oblige everyone within hearing to voice an opinion._

_Unfortunately House sabotages Cuddy's efforts before John can complete his rambling exegesis on the effects of global warming on Britain's climate. (According to John Britain is headed for the next Ice Age.) He effectively kills the conversation by yelling into the phone, "Biopsy the spleen! … You have? Great! Phone again when you have the results." He slips his phone back into his jacket muttering, "Morons!", and attacks his food with renewed vigour._

_The phone rings again. House throws down his fork and huffs into the speaker. He frowns at whatever the person at the other end is saying._

" _I read somewhere that the Brunel got an award for its superior cuisine," Cuddy says to Baz, plucking Rachel's fingers out of the salad bowl._

_Baz tears his gaze away from House in order to respond to her. "Yes, we're trying out traditional British recipes, and the response has been amazing."_

_Ellie chimes in on cue. "Their roast lamb is amazing. It melts on the tongue."_

" _Would you give me your recipe, please?" Cuddy asks Baz sweetly. If Wilson didn't know that she hates red meat, he'd be fooled. She listens to Baz enumerating ingredients for all the world as though she intended to make the dish one day, both of them markedly ignoring House. John, however, stares at House with mouth agape while Ellie eyes him with the enthusiastic doubtfulness of a robin who suspects that the nestling it lavished extensive care on is in actuality a young cuckoo._

_It suddenly strikes Wilson that House's Bristol friends have never experienced him working,_ really _working. They've never seen him on a roll, doing his 'diagnostic' thing; it is possible that they've never as much as witnessed him take a phone call in all the years they've known him._

_House holds the phone against his chest and says to the table at large, "What looks like malaria, but isn't malaria?"_

" _Is this a game?" John asks._

_House rolls his eyes. "No, it's not, you …"_

" _Lyme disease," Cuddy says quickly._

_House nods his approval of the suggestion even as he shoots it down. "That was our first thought, but the serological test was negative, no EM, no memory of tick bites, no improvement under doxycycline."_

" _What are the symptoms?" Wilson asks, drawn in despite himself._

_House puts the phone on speaker and props it up against his plate. "The symptoms are fever, flushes, headache, nausea. Did I miss anything?" This last is directed at the phone._

_There is silence, then the person at the other end says carefully, "Enlarged liver. Are you discussing our patient's symptoms with non-hospital personnel?"_

" _No," House says airily. "I'm in a restaurant loo, talking to myself. It helps my process."_

" _Then what's the noise in the background?"_

" _Muzac. I hate what these places do with their hygienic facilities. Time was when there was interesting graffiti on the walls and you could spend a happy hour or two reading the crudest imaginable jokes, but nowadays everything is a sterile white and the music drives you away before you're had the time to wipe your arse. Can we continue?"_

" _Dry cough," the phone says reluctantly. "White blood count slightly elevated."_

" _Was the patient abroad?" Cuddy asks._

_House gives her his 'duh' look. "_ Ob _-viously, otherwise we wouldn't have been talking malaria."_

" _There_ is _someone with you," the phone squawks._

" _What's Pete doing?" Rachel asks._

" _Diagnosing," Cuddy answers her. "Hush, otherwise he won't be able to hear what the doctor at the other end is saying."_

_House clears a space in front of him by the simple expedient of pushing everything, including Ellie and Wilson's plates, to the side and then leans forward to pluck a pen from John's shirt pocket. John's surprised squawk at being robbed dies on his lips when he sees what House does next, namely jot down the symptoms on the white linen tablecloth in front of him._

" _I don't think that'll come out in the wash," he says._

" _No, death tends to stick," House agrees absently._

" _Could be leishmaniasis," Wilson says._

" _Geoff," House says to the phone, "what do you say to that?"_

" _Serology negative, nothing in the splenic aspirate. The spleen isn't enlarged. Dr House, you can't do this!"_

" _What did that fellow call him?" John says._

" _He's a doctor?" Ellie asks. She doesn't seem all that surprised._

_Wilson looks helplessly at Cuddy. What does House want them to say, what would he prefer this crowd not to know?_

_Cuddy, twirling pasta around her fork, says carefully, "He's a diagnostician."_

" _Oh," John says, pushing his food around his plate. "I didn't know you could, you know, just do that. I mean, without medical training."_

_Cuddy smiles her end-of-conversation smile and says curtly, "He's got medical training."_

_John is patently oblivious to the vibes in the room. "Then why didn't he – ouch!" Ellie must have kicked him under the table. John looks up, finally registering Wilson and Cuddy's discomfort, and once more says, "Oh!"_

_Wilson leans forward to talk into the phone. "Could be an atypical presentation. Patients with compromised immune systems often have false negative tests and no enlargement of the spleen. Any history of cancer?"_

" _No, but who are you?" There is a hint of desperation in Geoff's voice._

" _God, these kids are irritating!" House remarks. "He's an oncologist, obviously; that's why he thinks of cancer first when the immune system's off. But that's not the only cause for abnormal immune responses." He puffs up his cheeks and lets the air out with a plop. "Test our patient for HIV."_

_There is a hushed babble at the other end, then a female voice says, "We can't. We haven't got his consent."_

" _Then_ get _his consent."_

" _He won't give it: he's a bishop."_

_House leans back and lifts his eyes to the ceiling, enunciating slowly, "I agree that his belief in God could be a sign that he has no grey matter. An HIV test, however, requires blood, not brain matter, and_ that _even idiots have in abundance. Test. Him. For. HIV!"_

_There is further muttering, then the woman says, "Dr House, you may not be aware of the political ramifications of this case. Our patient is aiming to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury. If news of an HIV test leaked …"_

" _Does he want to die?"_

" _He wants to make sure he has a career to go back to once this is over, which he won't if tales of Hep C and HIV tests get around," the woman says. "He doesn't even want it known that he's been hospitalised: if health issues become public, his, uh, extracurricular activities will be looked into. And that would be the end of his bishopric."_

" _If he doesn't do the test, he'll be exchanging his mitre for a halo. And no matter how much these men of God talk about wanting to exchange their crosses for crowns, when push comes to a shove they'll cling to the certainty that this life offers them. Have you still got some blood?"_

" _Yes, but …"_

" _Then do the test. That's an order!"_

_Silence. (At the table all conversation ceased long ago.) "I'm afraid we can't really do a test to which the patient has not consented."_

" _Do it or you're fired!"_

_The man, Geoff, is back on the line. "Dr House, I'm afraid you can't dismiss us; we're not your employees. We're merely delegated from our respective departments for the duration of the case."_

" _You don't have a team of your own?" Cuddy asks, shocked._

" _Nope," House replies, his brow furrowed in concentration. He speaks into the phone. "You're saying you can do as you please, and I can't fire you."_

_Geoff clears his throat. "Well, I wouldn't put it that way, but …"_

" _Send me the liver scans," House orders, a gleam in his eyes that bodes ill. (The unfortunate Geoff, however, can't see that, and even if he could, it is doubtful whether he is capable of interpreting the augurs correctly.) "You_ can _do that, can't you?"_

_Without waiting for an answer he severs the connection, then leans down and pulls his laptop out of his backpack. "Get me the password for this place's wi-fi!" he barks at John._

_Ellie gets up instead, returning a few moments later with a slip of paper that she dumps wordlessly in front of House._

" _Why haven't you got a team?" Cuddy asks._

_House ignores her; he is staring at the screen, his forehead furrowed in concentration, one elbow propped on the table with the fingers of that hand scratching his brow._

" _The hospital administration thinks it would be more economical for him to have doctors assigned from other departments as and when needed than for him to have staff of his own," Wilson answers for House._

_Cuddy gives him a 'you're kidding!' look. "That'll never work," she says to House._

" _Saves me the bother of conducting interviews," House mutters, staring at the screen._

_Wilson and Cuddy exchange glances. Some things never change._

" _Liver doesn't look good," Cuddy remarks, coming around the table to peer over House's shoulder._

" _This isn't a state-the-obvious contest," House says testily._

" _Could be either of them, leishmaniasis or malaria," Cuddy says. "The scans are inconclusive."_

_House leans back and tips his head to look up at her. "Are you even a doctor?" he gripes. "Come up with something we can test for or shut up!"_

" _It could be hepatitis," Wilson suggests._

" _Or your bog-standard liver cirrhosis caused by years of alcohol abuse." House's eyes widen. "Now_ that's _something we can work with," he says with a burst of manic energy, smacking his lips and waggling his fingers over the keyboard. "Clickety-click-click, off to my favourite site … Then we upload it – there. … Add a few hashtags – there. … Save, and post. Voilà!" He leans back, grinning happily._

_Then he picks the phone up from the table, scrolls down his contacts and dials, one eye on his screen all the while. "Geoff," he says amicably, "you really need to be more careful with patient confidentiality. I've found your scans on Tumblr, tagged #bishop and #alcohol cirrhosis. … Oh, wow, they just got 'liked' by someone! I wonder whether they've been re-blogged yet."_

_Wilson shakes his head in dismay. Cuddy throws up her hands and returns to her seat next to Rachel. "I hope his job contract includes insurance cover for HIPAA violations," she says._

_House holds the phone away from his ear, a wise move in view of the pandemonium issuing from the speaker. After it dies down he says, "Geoff, are you suggesting that_ I _posted those pictures?" It is a pity that Geoff can't see that puppy-dog look of innocence. "Why would I do that? …_ You _were the one who sent patient scans to a public hotspot where anyone with minimal IT skills can access them. If you feel like explaining your indiscretion to Wesley, then go ahead and send him a link!"_

_He grins smugly at whatever Geoff is saying. Then he says with fake sincerity, "I'm_ so _sorry to hear that you'd prefer not to work for me again. But until we've diagnosed this patient, you'll have to stick it out. I suggest both of us do what we're best suited for:_ you _go get that HIV test, while_ I _figure out who cracked the security code for this hotspot and make them take the scans off Tumblr again. … Great!"_

_He throws the phone down and pulls his plate back towards himself again, attacking the cold remains with gusto._

_Wilson wordlessly rearranges his and Ellie's plates so that they, too, can continue their meal._

" _You know," Baz says conversationally to Cuddy and Wilson, "I used to believe that he behaved so badly at the Brunel because he was taking advantage of our friendship. Now I see that he was well-behaved – by his standards."_

* * *

**April 2016**

"I want food," House said. "Pizza. What do you want, Wilson?"

"Can't it wait?" They'd had a humongous breakfast – the full British works, House had boasted – merely two hours ago.

"I'm hungry now!"

"Fine, maybe those salt-and-vinegar chips," Wilson said, resigning himself to conducting the remaining interviews amid a pile of greasy cartons and the smell of cheese and garlic.

"Okay," House said, grinning malevolently for no apparent reason as he turned back to the interviewee with an expectant look.

"Sorry?" the candidate, a hopeful young man with a speciality in neurology, asked.

"You heard," House said impatiently. "Pepperoni pizza and chips. And two cokes. No, make that a coke and a beer."

"You want me to get you pizza?"

"No, I want you to dance the quadrille.  _Of course_  I want you to organise pizza.  _And_  Dr Wilson's order."

The candidate looked helplessly at Wilson, who shrugged. It could, after all, be worse: they were both lucky that this was the first time within House's memory that he was hiring. Goodness only knew what he'd get up to if he could remember the (admittedly few) other times he'd hired staff, because then he'd be even more bored than he was already, and likely as not he'd be trying to outdo himself with outrageous stunts.

Four hours later Wilson privately revised his estimate: it  _was_  worse. It wasn't that House's caprices were more extravagant than usual. The problem was that his place of employment wasn't attuned to him yet.

"A fire alarm, a broken centrifuge, patients in panic on the second floor, and a complaint about sexual harassment. Dr House, would you care to explain in what manner this is related to 'hiring a team'?"

House leaned back comfortably in one of the visitor chairs in the Chief Administrator's office. "They were morons." He must have noticed Wilson tense up, because he amended, " _Some_  of them were morons."

"That doesn't explain why your staff interviews have left a trail of destruction."

House blinked innocently at Dr Wesley."So that in future, when I actually have a team, this sort of thing doesn't happen on a daily basis. That's kinda the idea of staff interviews, isn't it, to separate the wheat from the chaff? Just imagine what would happen if Miss Louboutin ever operated an MRI instead of a centrifuge!"

Wesley blinked at the list of names in front of him. "Miss, er, Louboutin?"

Wilson felt obliged to intervene. "That was Veronica Chiltern, I think. She was wearing Louboutin heels. House sets the candidates tasks to make sure that they are able to deal with the daily challenges of diagnostics."

"We have  _technicians_  for our lab equipment," Wesley said.

"My staff run their own tests," House said, all relaxation wiped from his features.

"I'm afraid that …"

"I didn't make a request; I stated a fact."

"I see," Wesley said, frowning down at his desk.

"And you'll find a clause in my contract saying as much," House continued inexorably.

"Ah," Wesley said. "That's, well, awkward."

"For you, maybe," House conceded. "Not for the patients."

"Are you insinuating that our technicians are incapable of operating their equipment?" Wesley asked.

House leaned forward, his fingers steepled. "Your office is broken into, but all that's missing is a prominent politician's medical file that unfortunately contains the result of his crotch swab. Whom do you call, hospital security or Scotland Yard?"

"Scotland Yard," Wesley said automatically, "but I don't see …"

"House's team," Wilson translated, "specialise in dealing with rare and puzzling cases. They are trained to spot patterns where other people merely see negative test results, to see the whole, not just the part currently being tested, and to look for abnormalities in places that normal lab technicians aren't taught to consider."

"Very well," Wesley conceded, "but that doesn't explain the rest. Or why I'm being billed for …," he looked at a greasy cash receipt on his desk, "chips."

"It didn't seem fair to make Wilson pay for chips that he didn't want. Our first candidate got him chips with salt and vinegar. Wilson wanted  _crisps_."

"That's what they call them here?" Wilson said, diverted. "Then I guess it was my fault."

"It was his fault for not making sure he got you right," House corrected. Turning back to Wesley he said, "My patients come from all over the world. If a young doctor whose daily television fare probably consists of American series can't understand an American, how will he get a decent patient history from people who speak no English whatsoever?"

Wesley had no answer to that.

House continued, "We also now know that Oxbridge Oaf would probably cause a mass panic in the Greater London area when confronted with rare infectious diseases like polio or the plague, if the way he communicated a potential meningitis break-out is any indication."

"You told the patients on the second floor that we have a meningitis epidemic?" Wesley said hollowly.

"Technically,  _I_  didn't. My candidate did."

Wesley swivelled to his phone and punched in a few numbers – rather violently, Wilson thought. "Mrs Cribbs? If the press call, please tell them that there is no meningitis at this hospital, and there never was. It was a false alarm. Tell them we were testing our new guidelines for containing infectious diseases within the hospital environment, or something like that. … No, there are no new guidelines, but there  _will_  be."

"Was that all?" House disentangled his limbs from the chair and made to rise, acting for all the world as if he had been asked down for an informal cup of afternoon tea.

"Excuse me for a moment, Mrs Cribbs," Wesley said into the phone. Then, pointing with the receiver at the chair House had just vacated, he said, "The sexual harassment, Dr House."

House sat down again, grimacing. Wilson tugged at his collar. He was having difficulties breathing.

"Yes, thank you, Mrs Cribbs," Wesley said, and put down the phone. "Ms Young informed our personnel department that you offered her a job in return for sexual favours. Is there any truth in her accusation, Dr Wilson?"

Wilson froze. Why was he suddenly being held responsible for what House had done? Before he could protest House's (partial) innocence, House interrupted indignantly, "That is total rubbish! Did she seriously think I'd pay her a full salary in return for a few blow jobs? I can get a much better deal from the ladies at Earl's Court."

"House!" Wilson gasped before a coughing fit rendered him speechless.

Wesley drew himself up behind his desk. "Dr House, I can make concessions regarding technical equipment and I can close an eye to a few disruptive incidents that were undoubtedly accidental and hopefully deeply regretted." Here he paused, but House looked smug rather than contrite. "However, we have a zero tolerance policy towards sexual harassment."

"Ah, I love hospital policies. So universally applicable," House murmured.

Wilson, still coughing into his handkerchief, held up a beseeching hand. Wesley politely waited for him to recover. "It," Wilson wheezed, "it was a stress test. House launches verbal attacks on people to see how they react."

"It was not!" House protested, ignoring Wilson's glare. "It was a simple test in probability." Snagging a letter from Wesley's desk, he turned it over and sketched some squares on the reverse. "You've got a parcheesi or ludo board, tokens, and a single dice. One of the spaces is 'Chores'. If a player's token lands on that space, that player has to do a chore for me."

"For example, wash House's car," Wilson interjected. That was the chore that House had suggested in the first interview.

Wesley frowned.

"Or take my laundry to the cleaner's," House continued. "Or clean my bathroom. Or, in the case we're discussing, give me a blow job."

"So you  _did_  ask her to, uh, perform oral sex?" Wesley asked, blanching.

"No," House corrected. "I didn't even ask her to play. I asked how many rounds it would take on average before a player would have to go down on me."

"You hinted that you'd be amenable to receiving favours of a sexual nature," Wesley said tightly.

House's eyes glinted. "I don't 'hint'," he said, making the last word sound dirty. "If I had wanted sex, I'd have said so. I think we're done here. Good afternoon!"

"Umm, Dr House?" Wesley called after him, but House was out of the door already. Wilson wasn't quite as fast – or rude – so Wesley latched onto him instead. "I'm not sure whether Dr House understood what I was getting at," he said, looking at Wilson expectantly.

Wilson sighed as he tried to suppress the next coughing fit. Wesley would have to learn to deal; Wilson wasn't going to be around all the time. "When you fight a bull," he finally said, "you wave a red cloth to distract him, and you have to be prepared to jump aside really fast when he charges."

Wesley gave him a long stare. "I'm not sure whether this habit of talking in metaphors is particularly helpful."

"Your method," Wilson pointed out, "wasn't any more direct. You sat him down and asked him a lot of questions when all you wanted was for him to stop his disruptive behaviour. Don't ask him to explain his behaviour if you aren't interested in understanding him, because he'll out-explain you any day. And if you want to stop him, you need to put in a sprint to get in his way, no matter how ridiculous it makes you look. That, by the way, wasn't meant metaphorically, but literally."

Wilson found House back in his office, his feet on his desk, staring at the ceiling, one hand tapping an irritating rhythm on the pile of applications sitting on his desk.

"Was it really necessary to mention blow jobs?" Wilson said wearily. He'd witnessed House progressing from mild  _ennui_  to unmitigated, mind-blowing boredom as the afternoon progressed, and it had come as no surprise that House's manners had deteriorated rapidly while the hypothetical chores had become more and more outrageous. He'd been a disaster waiting to happen.

House shrugged. "It's always a good idea to get your superior involved in the selection process," he dead-panned.

Wilson looked hopefully at the application files. "Which ones are you going to take?" he asked.

House swung his feet down and took the top file off the pile. "Ms Louboutin." He flicked his wrist and the file landed in the bin.

'Chips'n'Crisps' joined his colleague, as did 'Oxbridge Oaf'. Then another three applicants landed on top of them. And then House swept the remaining files off the desk into the overflowing bin.

"What was wrong with those?" Wilson asked, blinking. Rescuing the top three, he opened the first one to refresh his memory. "This one's fine. He answered all your questions satisfactorily, has good grades, and seems open and curious."

"How many candidates did I ask the 'chores' question?" House asked, piling up empty pizza cartons on the cleared desk space.

"Every one of them, I think," Wilson answered after a moment's thought.

"And how many got it right?"

"Most of them?" Wilson hazarded. He had loathed probability at school: one problem and twenty students had equalled twenty different solutions, none of which had ever turned out to be right.

House snorted in disgust. "The answer isn't 'six rounds', Wilson. Use your brain!" He rooted around in his desk until he found a twelve-inch ruler.

Wilson wisely ignored the slur on his intelligence. "So, you're refusing to hire a number of otherwise perfectly qualified physicians because they won't be able to break the bank in Vegas."

"No," House said, leaning the ruler against the pizza cartons to form a ramp that ran towards the edge of the desk. He fished an empty beer can from the trash and gauged the distance between the desk and the bin. "I'm refusing to hire a number of them because although I asked the same question in every interview, not one of the later candidates was curious enough to do the obvious – find out what the previous candidates were asked and prepare accordingly."

He placed the beer can at the top of the ramp. It wobbled along the ruler, but made it all the way down before it fell off the edge of the desk, landing on the floor a few inches beyond the bin. House scratched his head. "We need another pizza carton. Or maybe two."

"No," Wilson said. "Definitely not! You are not testing any further applicants by asking them to order pizza. Or by making them build a beer can run. Or do chores. Do something diagnostic with them: give them an imaginary case and ask them what tests they'd run, or something like that."

"Okay," House said. "The three whose suggestions make the most sense get the job. Satisfied?"

"Fine," Wilson said, more than satisfied.

His satisfaction lasted till the next morning, when it turned out that House intended to judge the efficacy of the tests and procedures suggested by the candidates by seeing if the results provided a valid diagnosis. Which, of course, could only be done if he had a real patient:

"Our Patient of the Day has a persistent, irritating cough – irritating to me, if not to him. Ten points for a test that provides a definite diagnosis, three points for a test that successfully excludes a condition, and minus five points for tests that are inconclusive, redundant, time consuming, or expensive," House elucidated to the assembled candidates.

"But … there are tests that are time consuming and expensive, but necessary in order to get a definitive diagnosis," the Dumb-ass of the Day said.

"Totally," House affirmed. "And there are bosses who are going to put money before medicine. My selection process mirrors life's realities."

Wilson felt that in real life, he'd be told without further ado that he had a viral infection and would have to live with it until it had run its course, rather than be subjected to blood tests, lung x-rays, and the like for the entire day. Apparently some of the candidates felt the same.

"What if he only has the common cold?" one of them asked rather desperately.

"Then narrow it down without blowing the hospital's resources," House advised. "You have today to run your tests, take blood for the blood work, do scans, and so on and so forth. Then you have two days to find a diagnosis. We meet again on Friday at 10 am."

He gave them a friendly wave, and then he sauntered out, leaving Wilson in the midst of a crowd of applicants who closed in on him like vampires too long deprived of blood.


	3. New Ga(i)l

**Christmas 2015**

_House has no intention of attending the hospital Christmas party. It has some other fancy name, 'End-of-Year Festivity', in keeping with the hospital's policy of maintaining religious neutrality and it takes place after Christmas instead of before. Nevertheless, in all essentials it is what it used to be when the times still allowed the old-fashioned appellation: lots of food and booze accompanied by an appalling selection of music._

_Wilson only finds out about it because he decides to drop in on House at work while Cuddy takes Rachel on a day of sightseeing. (Trust Rachel to come all this way only to insist on seeing the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum; she could have gotten those in the States.) While they're having lunch in the canteen – the fries are unbelievably greasy, while the peas, of a chemical shade of green, are mashed to a pulp – House's boss walks up to their table._

" _Dr House, I hope we'll see you tonight at our staff party," he says, his demeanour indicating that he isn't expecting a negative reply._

 _Wilson doesn't have to glance at House to know what_ his _demeanour is screaming out. He intervenes with the ease that years of practice have imbued, rising and holding out his hand. "Dr Wesley, I believe? I'm James Wilson, House's former colleague from Princeton. Thank you so much for inviting Dr Cuddy and me to the hospital's End-of-Year festivities. We'll be glad to come."_

 _Dr Wesley is slightly bemused. "Pleased to meet you," he says automatically, shaking the extended hand. He glances from Wilson to House as though looking for a clue, but House, wearing his sinister_ not-what-I-expected-but-this-could-be-just-as-good _expression, lets the good man stew in his ignorance._

" _Well, I'm glad you'll be able to make it tonight," Wesley finally says, looking at neither of them specifically, after which he beats a hasty retreat._

" _Smooth," House comments. "How do you intend to explain my absence to him?"_

" _I don't," Wilson says shortly. "You said we could do whatever I liked tonight. I choose the Christmas party."_

" _I could be introducing you to London's gay scene, nude scene, or gay-nude scene, and you choose a dinky Christmas party? Come on, Wilson!"_

" _Chase has a pool going on how long you'll last in this job. I'm not forfeiting my 100 dollars without a fight," Wilson says straight-faced. He deftly changes the topic before House starts digging in his heels in earnest. "Wesley addressed you as_ Doctor _House. Doesn't he know that you haven't got a licence?"_

" _Sure he does, but the title isn't protected in this country. Anyone can use it, even a tree doctor."_

" _So you're wilfully deceiving people into believing that …"_

" _Not me!" House cuts in. "_ My boss _is wilfully deceiving people." He huffs in irritation at Wilson's look of disbelief. "Think about it, Wilson. If my patients find out that officially I can't even take their temperature without supervision, they'll be all over him demanding that they be treated by a 'real' doctor."_

_Wilson points an accusing finger at him. "But you're not stopping him!"_

_House shrugs. "He does it because it benefits him, but it also benefits me so I'd be an idiot to stop him. It's difficult enough as it is to get an accurate patient history. Tell my patients that I don't have a licence and they'll not only lie through their teeth, but feel completely justified in doing so."_

–––––––––

_Cuddy is predictably unenthusiastic about leaving Rachel alone in a strange environment, nor does she have a vested interest in Chase's pool (should that pool actually exist, but Wilson is prepared to bet 100 dollars that it does), but she can be persuaded to see the wisdom of investing some energy into keeping House employed for as long as possible._

" _But why do_ I _have to come along? I'm fine spending a quiet night with Rachel at the hotel," she protests._

" _Because evading_ two _people in order to slip out the back door is more difficult than slipping past one person," Wilson explains patiently._

_They are fashionably late, their tardiness caused not only by House arriving at their hotel twenty minutes past the agreed time, but also by Cuddy getting Rachel settled for the night, making sure that Rachel has her cell phone number, and double and triple checking whether Rachel is okay with the hotel's babysitting service looking in on her at regular intervals. (Rachel at age eight is already an eye-roll specialist, and her, 'Mom, I'm not a baby!' reverberates in Wilson's ears long after the cab has drawn away from the hotel's curb.) The net result is that they are banished to a small table in a corner of the festive hall, but in view of House's general reluctance to come at all and the level of jackassery he's already displaying, the further on the fringe they are, the better._

_It takes Wilson some time to figure out that they are being treated like pariahs by most of the staff_ not _because House has already managed to antagonise his colleagues, but because (oh, blissful circumstance!) House's face is still practically unknown; his British colleagues are, on average, much too reticent to introduce themselves to a bunch of complete strangers. So, other than polite nods and smiles, they are left pretty much to themselves for the first twenty minutes after their arrival._

_Cuddy has left the room, ostensibly to powder her nose, but more probably to phone the hotel's babysitting service, when Wilson's musings on a young blonde in a pink party hat are interrupted._

" _You're Dr House?" says a voice with a slight lilt. (Scottish? Irish? Wilson can never tell the difference.) It belongs to a tall woman in her late thirties or early forties, her hair the shade that Rachel calls 'ginger' but that Wilson prefers to refer to as 'auburn', her complexion pale and freckled. The hint of make-up she wears enhances clear grey-green eyes, eyes that are trained on House with a look that Wilson knows. He's seen it on all too many colleagues' and patients' faces in past years: the_ you've-pissed-me-off _look._

_Brilliant! His first social interaction of the evening is going to be Defusing a Situation that House has managed to create without even knowing the colleague in question._

_House scoots his chair back and tips his head to assess her, which she takes as an affirmative answer to her question. She slides unbidden into the chair Cuddy just vacated. "Gail Fothergill," she says, "I teach psychology to our Foundation Year doctors."_

_House allows his eyes to travel down her form and then, slowly, up again. "Tell me again why I'm supposed to be pleased to meet you," he drawls. "Because I really can't tell why I should be."_

_Wilson draws in a sharp breath. Gail may not be the material that fuels shower fantasies, but she's not exactly hard on the eyes either. She isn't as curvaceous as House normally likes 'em and of course ginger can't compete with brunette, but no doubt the primary reason for House's crude rebuttal is his unhappiness at being here at the party, which really isn't Gail's fault._

_Before Wilson can come to Gail's rescue she replies coolly, "I wasn't aiming to please." Without a pause she gets down to the nitty-gritty. "Dr House, on Tuesday the Foundies didn't come to my class. Later I was informed that you'd insisted that they stay longer in your Diagnostics class to examine a_ dead rat _."_

" _To diagnose a_ patient _," House corrects her, adding regretfully, "who unfortunately didn't live long enough to benefit from their diagnosis."_

" _The rat was dead when you pushed it into the MRI," Gail says. "It could have waited."_

" _You did an MRI on a rat?" Wilson murmurs, wondering why he's surprised._

" _I, too, would have much preferred to have done the MRI at some other time, but until I've sussed out enough dirt on the radiology technicians to be able to monopolise the MRI whenever I need it, I will have to make do with whatever time slot I'm assigned," House says with a hint of real regret. "But don't get your hopes up:_ your _preferences won't influence the way I plan class assignments, no matter how cooperative radiology or the labs are."_

_Gail props her chin on her hand. "So you're of the opinion that your Diagnostics class supersedes Psychology and that carrying out procedures on dead rats is more important than learning 'psychobabble'?"_

" _Oooh, someone's iddly-widdly feelings got hurt!" House crows. He's serious a moment later, matching Gail's chin-on-hand posture and staring straight into her eyes from a mere foot away. "The dead rat proves my point. Had the students focused all their energy on it instead of rushing from class to class, the wee beastie might have lived. Once my students have diagnosed their patient, they're free to indulge in esoteric pastimes, but until then patient care has priority. Diagnostics is all about saving lives."_

" _What ailed your vermin – sorry, 'patient'?" Gail enquires, not backing away an inch from his proximity._

_Wilson can't remember ever hearing anyone use the word 'ail'. The musical timbre of her voice, the archaic vocabulary, and the soft lilt have a heady effect, rather like a strong, sweet wine._

" _Mrs Murida Rattus suffered from cancer. Ovarian cancer. With timely treatment – who knows? – she might have survived," House says with an air of melancholy._

" _Just as she might have, if the Foundation class understood rat language, enabling them to obtain a proper patient history. They don't (more's the pity for the vermin population), but they_ are _capable of learning to communicate with human patients, to understand their body language, and to read between the lines. All of that will save a lot of lives, especially when you consider that NHS patients have to wait for months to get an MRI or a CT scan done. Furthermore, our doctors can learn to give clear, unambiguous treatment instructions that patients can understand and follow, thereby saving even more lives. And that's what_ I _teach them." Having made her point, Gail leans back. "I have instructed the class to appear early in my classroom next week to make up for the time we lost this week, so you needn't bother to wait for them. And in future, do try to ensure that you dismiss the class punctually, Dr House."_

" _Pete," House says._

" _I'm sorry?"_

" _That's my name: Pete. It's short for Gregory House, which is short for 'Genius Diagnostician with an International Reputation Who Can Out-bully You Any Day'. If you're going to invade my privacy every time I step on your metaphorical bunions, we'll be very intimate very soon, so let's switch to first names, shall we?"_

_House has the slightest of grins on his lips as he fixes Gail with one of his mesmerising stares, but she is not that easily intimidated. She leans forward again, very consciously moving into his personal space, the upward tug on her lips mirroring House's._

" _Very well,_ Pete _." Looking up at something slightly to Wilson's left, she says, rising, "Oh, sorry, did I take your place? I'll be gone in a moment."_

_Wilson twists to see Cuddy behind him, back from wherever she was. She has a thoughtful, slightly worried expression on her face._

_Pushing her chair back, Gail smiles down at House. "You intend to tell the Foundation class to ignore me and come to your class anyway, and then you'll keep them late again, won't you?" she enquires sweetly._

_House's smirk has morphed into a full-fledged grin. He tips his head slightly to confirm her surmise, and then he rises to tower over her. "I'm bigger and badder than you," he says, "and a lot scarier when I yell. They'll come."_

" _I won't_ have _to yell when I inform them that 'Psychobabble for Beginners', as you deigned to call it, is a compulsory course on which they will be graded, while 'Introduction to Diagnostics' is an optional course with a mere pass requirement. Guess which one they'll choose to attend? Have a good evening, Dr House! It was a pleasure to get to know you." She gives the others a polite smile. "Sorry for disturbing you, but these things are best settled in an informal, relaxed atmosphere, don't you think?" And then she's gone, as quickly as she came._

_Wilson tries to catch Cuddy's eye as she sits down again, willing her to share in his amusement at House's expression of gob-smacked appreciation at being bested, but she's quiet, preoccupied with the pattern on the paper tablecloth. Nor does she, when Wilson and House assess and grade Dr Fothergill's charms on the Richter scale, accompany their litany with her usual exasperated eye roll. Something is decidedly off._

_When House goes off to get another beer, Wilson turns to Cuddy. "Is everything okay at the hotel?" he asks._

" _What? Yes," Cuddy answers somewhat belatedly, her eyes following House. Wilson, following her line of vision, suddenly notices Gail Fothergill standing at the bar towards which House is headed. Oh, holy shit! Should he hope for the best or should he intervene before they start World War III?_

_Cuddy is saying something that Wilson doesn't catch in his preoccupation. "I'm sorry. I was distracted," he says._

" _I was saying that I'd like to go back to the hotel. I honestly don't like leaving Rachel in new surroundings even if there's a babysitting service." She rises, but places a restraining hand on his arm. "You and Pete stay here. I'll catch a cab." And with that she's gone, which is a pity since the buffet is about to open._

_Wilson returns his attention to House, who has sidled up to the bar next to Gail Fothergill. If they are carrying on any sort of feud, then it's under cover of perfect amicability and harmony, because neither of them displays the slightest sign of displeasure or animosity in expression or body language. Wilson sighs with relief and turns his attention to the buffet. There he bumps into a fellow oncologist whom he met years ago at a conference in Washington, and before he knows it, it's midnight and House has been MIA for hours. He finally finds House outside smoking a cigar, looking generally pleased with the world._

" _I'm sorry – I met an old friend," Wilson apologises with a twinge of guilt. 'Friend' is a gross exaggeration, but that's something House with his amnesia can't know._

" _S'okay," House mouths through his cigar. "I met a new one." And his smile, as they go in search of a cab, is both youthful and devious._

**April 2016**

They'd all wanted to draw blood, take x-rays and do full-body scans – until Wilson had pointed out gently that it would reflect badly on their people skills and their ability to cope with meagre resources if they made pin cushions of real patients and exposed them to radiation poisoning. He was prepared to subject himself to each procedure _once only_ , and they'd better decide which ones they really needed. And no, he was _very_ sorry, but he would not consent to a liver biopsy. (He did, however, allow them all to listen to his lungs, peer down his throat, and do all the other manual non-invasive 'doctor things' they could think of.)

By mid-afternoon they were done. "So, what's the plan for the next two days?" he asked, mindful of House's instructions to the applicants to be done by Friday. "Do you have a patient?"

"Nope; I'm all yours. Tell me what you want to do and we'll do it."

House's cell phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket, and after looking at the screen he took the call, his tensed features relaxing into something akin to a smile. "Hey," he breathed into the phone, his eyes creasing, the lines on his forehead smoothing out. He leaned back comfortably, crossing his ankles and swivelling to and fro gently in his chair.

The House Wilson knew didn't 'breathe' into phones. Nor did his thumb caress the phone as he talked. And he certainly didn't smile fondly at whatever the person at the other end said.

He was suffering from delusions, Wilson decided, brought on by the multiple procedures carried out on him today.

"Dinner sounds great," House was saying. "Your place? … No, it's fine. … Okay, see you in half an hour."

He looked up, grimacing when he saw Wilson's speculative glance. "You're meeting someone for dinner?" Wilson asked.

"Yes."

The scant reply filled Wilson with foreboding. "A woman?"

"Is that a crime?" House asked.

"Since you're deflecting – yes," Wilson replied. He remembered Cuddy's suspicion. "Is this the psychologist we met at Christmas at the hospital do?"

"And if it was?" House countered with a question once again.

That was an Ill Portent. It meant 'yes', and it meant that House not only knew that this wasn't a Good Idea, but that he intended to pursue this Bad Idea no matter what Wilson said.

And Wilson had no doubt that this was a Bad Idea, because the only reason he hadn't taken much notice of House's interest in Ms Fothergill at the time had been because subconsciously he'd assumed that even if House were interested, the object of his pursuit wouldn't return the sentiment. She had been wearing a plain gold band on her left hand.

"House … Pete, she's married!"

"Would that stop you?" House asked.

Wilson looked at him suspiciously. The mocking tone that House used to adopt whenever Wilson's sex life in general and his marital life in particular had come up was notably absent. There was also no sign of guile on House's face; his expression was curious and somewhat disbelieving. Wilson wondered whether Nolan's notes and Chase's anecdotes had omitted Wilson's marital and extra-marital imbroglios.

He wasn't sure whether he was pleased that House's unfailing source of mockery had run dry in the drought of his amnesia. He'd never been able to keep anything of note secret from House, and while every newly uncovered secret had brought with it a stream of ridicule and sarcasm, there had been an odd comfort in knowing that the man who knew the darkest corners of his soul didn't despise him for them. This total stranger in front of him, how would he react?

House was still waiting for an answer. Wilson sighed. "No, it wouldn't. Or rather, being married didn't stop me from cheating. But trust me, it never ended well, and the last time you interfered in an existing marriage it was messy."

"I'm not interfering in an existing marriage," House said, with emphasis on 'existing'.

"She's a widow?" Wilson said hopefully. If the woman were divorced, she probably wouldn't be wearing the ring.

"Nope. Hubby had a midlife crisis. He's busy screwing one of his students."

"So she's on the rebound," Wilson said, hardly happier than before.

"People are either in a relationship or on the rebound," House said with a shrug. "When you score, it doesn't matter whether it's a direct shot or off a rebound."

"Maybe, but in this game you aren't a starter. You're a reserve player who will get pulled off the court any moment."

House looked sinisterly enthusiastic. "No, I won't. I've done my research; I know what she's interested in, what food she likes, what music she listens to, her favourite novels. I've been attentive without being stifling. I've shown due interest in her offspring while making sure they know I'm not trying to replace MIA Dad."

"She has kids?" Wilson said with a sinking heart. This could not go well.

"Two teenagers," House said dismissively. "Teens are simple: ignore them and they'll ignore you."

"Pete, that won't work," Wilson argued, wondering why he was bothering. "They may not care, but their mother will."

"Relax – I've got it all under control. Went to the cinema with them, let them listen to the music on my playlist, showed them how to hack the parental control on their computer and download movies from the internet, so now I'm their hero."

Wilson's brow furrowed. "How long has this been going on?"

"A few months," House admitted with diffident pride. He glanced at the display of his cell phone, his lips twitching in a smile. For a brief moment he looked almost boyish.

A few months! And Wilson had known nothing, suspected nothing. Unlike Cuddy … oh, Jesus, Cuddy!

"Does – Cuddy know?" Wilson asked hesitantly.

House's gaze snapped up, his facial muscles tensing. He slipped the cell phone back into his jacket pocket and rose from his chair, leaning down to pick up his backpack. "Is it any business of hers?" he said, his back strategically turned on Wilson.

Oh, they were back to question and counter-question, were they? "You tell me," Wilson said, playing the ball right back into House's court.

"Lisa and I are not in a relationship," House said brusquely.

Wilson was used to House's deflections and feints. "That's not what I asked. I asked whether you don't owe it to her to let her know about this."

Blue-grey eyes scrutinised Wilson. "Why would I owe her anything?"

"Oh, I don't know," Wilson said. "Maybe because she still feels something for you, …"

"Not my problem," House interjected.

Ignoring him, Wilson continued stolidly, "Or because she went to one hell of a lot of trouble to get you out of a mess of your own making, …"

"Didn't ask her to," House said, but he wouldn't meet Wilson's gaze and his tone was surly.

"Or because it would be nice to play with open cards, instead of letting her believe that there's a chance …"

House clearly had no intention of letting him finish a single sentence uninterrupted. "Did she play with open cards when she 'forgot' to tell me that she knew about my past?"

"Oh, is this payback time?" Wilson asked. "Tell me, whose wishes was she supposed to respect: those of House, who wanted to forget his past, or those of Peter Barnes, who didn't know whether he wanted to know about the past he was digging up? Did you even tell Cuddy that you had amnesia and were researching your background?"

House was silent.

"I take it that's a no." Wilson tugged a hand through his hair, wondering how to get through to a man whose capacity for nursing grudges was phenomenal.

Wait – what grudge?

To date, House had shown no sign of resenting the choices Cuddy had made after meeting him unexpectedly three years after he had nuked his hippocampus. The only aspect of her conduct that he deplored was that she'd chosen to renew the contact between herself and the man who could easily have killed her four years earlier. That sort of 'idiocy', as House would (and did) call it, violated his sense of what was sane and rational. Withholding relevant information, however, was par for the course in House's world. House didn't impart information voluntarily, and he expected others to be as secretive as he was himself.

So what was the issue here?

Wilson pondered House's previous statements. House denying any obligation to Cuddy didn't mean that he didn't feel indebted to her. It just meant that he wasn't willing to _admit_ to any sort of emotional involvement, which was typical for House. He'd always refused to entertain the notion that he was capable of feeling responsibility for anyone he was affiliated with, maybe hoping that _professing_ indifference would make him feel that way too. If you didn't care, you couldn't get hurt.

House was bothered about telling Cuddy precisely _because_ he was afraid she'd get hurt. Which was great, really great! There had been times when House, emotionally numbed by Vicodin, hadn't even fathomed that his words or actions had the capacity to hurt others, let alone allowed the knowledge to bother him.

Wilson's first impulse was to let House know that he was onto him, but he managed to bite his tongue and survey his options. He could subject House to a dose of psychoanalysis, but much good that had ever done! He could try to impress on House the need to be open with Cuddy about this, but if House was in total denial about his odd bond with Cuddy, then he might as well talk to the wall.

Really, it would be simplest if he told Cuddy himself! But telling Cuddy about House's private life behind his back? Ten years ago he'd have done that with no compunction whatsoever (and the other way around too, to boot), secure in House's undying loyalty. Now he wasn't sure how that would go down with House.

He could, of course, just let things take their natural course. It was unlikely that Cuddy would pine endlessly for House – judging by her sparse hints at the airport and the fact that she'd chosen not to join him on this trip to England, it was more than likely that she suspected that House was otherwise involved. But suspicions, no matter how strong, did not equal knowledge, and Wilson for his part knew only too well how difficult it was to let go of someone you loved as long as there was still hope. Besides, Cuddy was a lot better at dealing with clear-cut situations than at hanging in limbo. She'd deal with it and move on, and that would be the end of the matter.

Which left Wilson with a decision to make: he could either do what was good for Cuddy at the risk of breaking the fragile bond that was forming between himself and House, or he could keep his peace and nurture his relationship with House with no regard for Cuddy's needs. Or …

He surprised himself by saying quietly, "Do you mind if _I_ tell her?"

House stared at him thoughtfully. Finally he shrugged, saying, "Do what you like. It's no state secret." And with that he shouldered his backpack. At the door he stopped. "Did you say what you wanted to do till Friday?"

"Well, I …," Wilson floundered.

"You've got till tomorrow morning to think about it. I'll pick you up. Eight o'clock sharp!" he threw over his shoulder and was gone before Wilson could object to the unearthly hour.


	4. Memories and Manias

**Christmas 2015**

_Rachel hums the Harry Potter theme all the way to Oxford. Cuddy considers dampening her expectations – reality can never keep up with the fairy tale that Rachel paints for herself in anticipation – but decides to enjoy these last blissful moments of peace before Rachel reverts to her usual cantankerous self._

_They start off with Christ Church, featuring, as Wilson's travel guide assures them, 'locations used in the movies' and the Great Hall, 'replicated to create the Hall at Hogwarts'._

_Rachel is suitably impressed by the quadrangles. She resolutely counters all of Wilson's attempts to widen her horizon with random facts about Lewis Carroll by describing in detail every scene from Harry Potter that was shot in the cloisters. When they enter the Meadows Buildings disillusionment sets in._

" _There are supposed to be stairs," she says, irritated._

" _Huh?" Wilson says._

" _Big stairs, going up to the Hall," Rachel explains._

" _There **are** stairs," Wilson points out._

_Yes, there are – unfortunately. There are enough steps to pose a serious impediment to a wheelchair-bound child, but they aren't even remotely as grand as the flight connecting the rest of Hogwarts to its entrance hall. Not for the first time Cuddy thanks her lucky stars that Wilson has come along with them instead of choosing to stay with Pete (who opted to skip the joys of a day out with a child). They've already developed a routine: Cuddy plucks Rachel out of the wheelchair and goes ahead with her; Wilson folds the wheelchair with a practiced movement, carries it up the stairs overtaking Rachel and Cuddy with his quick strides, and unfolds it again at the top._

" _Forget it," Cuddy, peering into the Hall past a group of Chinese tourists, says to Wilson as he places the wheelchair strategically in front of her. "There isn't enough room for the wheelchair in there."_

_So Wilson takes Rachel, who is pissed at being carried around like a baby and even more pissed when she realises that the Christ Church Hall is not only much smaller than its cinematic counterpart, but also has a perfectly normal ceiling._

" _That's stupid! They're cheating!"_

" _We'll go to the Library next," Wilson says bracingly._

_Cuddy's heart sinks when they get to the Bodleian Library and she reads the notice at the gate: children under the age of ten are not permitted in Duke Humfrey's Library, the part of the Bodleian Library in which the Hogwarts Library scenes were shot. She's used to checking up on wheelchair accessibility, but she didn't reckon with attractions where Rachel's age might be an impediment._

" _But she can see the Divinity School," the lady at the ticket counter says, smiling kindly at Rachel. "That's the Infirmary in the Harry Potter films."_

_As Cuddy envisions what Rachel will say about an Infirmary with no beds and no Madam Pomfrey, Wilson pulls an envelope out of his pocket and hands it to the lady. She takes out the letter inside, reads it with a puzzled frown and then reaches for the telephone, saying, "Excuse me."_

_A few moments later she smiles at them and says almost obsequiously, "The librarian who'll take you up to Duke Humfrey's Reading Room will be here in a few minutes. If you like, you can look around the quadrangle until he comes." She hands them a set of audio guides, waving away the credit card that Wilson proffers._

_About fifteen minutes later an elderly gentleman comes up to them. "Drs Cuddy and Wilson?" he asks. "Ah, and there's the young lady. Miss Rachel Cuddy, I believe? I'm Trevor Owen. I'm told you'd like to see Duke Humfrey's Reading Room."_

_He gives Rachel a little mock bow; his whole air reminiscent of the faun in the Narnia Chronicles. Cuddy catches herself squinting at his feet to see whether he has hoofs._

_Mr Owen rather rushes them through the Divinity School saying that he needs to get them up into the Reading Room before noon, but Cuddy is much too flummoxed to follow any of his erudite explanations, to appreciate the elaborate vaulting, or to care who got to use which entrance on what occasion. Rachel, however, has regained some of her former good spirits: the Divinity School may be sadly lacking in the trappings that would make it a_ bona fide _Infirmary, but it has a 'cool' fifteenth century money chest which 'looks exactly like Professor Moody's trunk'. Besides, she and Mr Owen hit it off from the start; it seems that fauns and little girls are soul mates in any world. Mr Owen, whose grandchildren also like Harry Potter, shows great interest in Professor Moody's trunk and quite sees the parallels to the object on exhibit._

_But even Rachel's running commentary ebbs into an awestruck silence when they finally make it up to the Reading Room. There's a tourist group in the ante-room, being instructed to maintain strict silence and to keep their fingers off the exhibits, but Mr Owen waves them past the group and magically opens the gate that separates the actual reading room from the small section open to the general public. For once Rachel doesn't object to being hoisted up in Wilson's arms; her eyes have gone large and round, and it doesn't take much imagination to figure out what she'll talk about the next few days._

_Cuddy, who can only follow Mr Owen's tripping steps in a daze, finally asks Wilson in a whispered aside – the silence here is very hallowed indeed! – "How'd you do that?"_

_Wilson shrugs. "No idea. House told me to show that letter at the gate, so that's what I did."_

_Mr Owen, overhearing them, gives them a quizzical smile. "It seems that you have friends in high places. I got an email yesterday from the head of the Medical Sciences Division asking me for this little favour, which, so he assures me, will ensure that the university's global appeal will continue to rise."_

_Cuddy and Wilson frown at each other in puzzlement, but soon the delight of roaming around a room filled with a sense of history, surrounded by rare folios, and bathed in light from the gothic window at the end of the room, supersedes their need to know. As Cuddy tells herself, in Pete-alias-House's case it is often better not to know._

_Pete, however, is rather amused when he's confronted with the accusation of blackmailing some Oxford bigwig. "They were happy to do me a favour," he avers, "from colleague to colleague, so to say."_

_He rubs his chin meditatively. "Okay, so I_ may _have hinted that I_ might _agree to give a series of guest lectures at the university if they let Rachel into their fusty old attic."_

* * *

**April 2016**

"Remind me again why we came here," House said, peeling the batter off his haddock and stuffing it into his mouth. "The two ugliest cathedrals in the whole of Europe, two houses that look exactly the same as any you could have seen in London, docks in a drizzle of rain, and a museum overrun with pesky school brats."

"I grew up with the Beatles," Wilson said with a reminiscent smile. "When I was eleven my uncle gave us a portable audio cassette player for Hanukkah and a Beatles cassette each. Till then we'd listened to other stuff: Michael – my older brother – used to decide what radio station we listened to, and Michael liked country music. But now we had a cassette player and three cassettes – our _only_ three cassettes – and none of them were country music. So Michael said, 'We're gonna to listen to these cassettes until we like the music,' and we did. We listened to the Beatles non-stop for six weeks. It drove Mom crazy." He hummed _Love Me Do_ happily as he speared a greasy potato fry. (Why on earth did the Brits put vinegar on them? It was disgusting!)

"Your uncle should have given you Rolling Stones cassettes," House said moodily. "Jagger and Richards come from Kent, just round the corner from London. We would have been spared a three-hour drive, and your taste in music would have been vastly improved."

"It could have been worse," Wilson said. "Danny, my younger brother, likes Abba."

It was odd, having to explain his family to House. It was even odder giving him these snippets of information in the knowledge that they meant nothing to him, whereas some ten years ago House's eyebrows would have quirked up in delight as he connected the dots between the way Wilson reacted to Abba songs on the radio and his family history. Wilson recalled the time he and House had been driving together and 'Dancing Queen' had come on the radio. He hadn't been able to suppress his reaction to the song, one of Danny's favourites. (Danny had played the Abba record again and again, dancing around the room and singing along off-key, his hair flying.) Noting Wilson's reaction House had promptly downloaded the corresponding ringtone and assigned it to Wilson's number. Wilson hadn't disabused House of the notion that he liked Abba; rather than tell him about Danny he had preferred to be thought a closet Abba fan.

Back in the present House sang in a loud high falsetto, " _Mamma mia, here I go again, My, my, how could I resist you?_ " He waggled his eyebrows suggestively at Wilson, who blushed as other guests turned to stare at them.

" _Mamma mia, does it show again, my, my, just how much I missed you?_ " Leaning his chin on his hand House lifted a lascivious eyebrow.

If House thought the public attention would faze Wilson, he had another think coming. As long as House didn't hit on Danny's true favourite, 'I Have a Dream', he might just be able to keep his act together. Wilson frowned at the memory of Danny standing in the middle of their bedroom, arms stretched out wide, head thrown back, singing with full conviction, " _I believe in angels!_ " Danny had really believed in angels.

Wilson pushed his plate away and rose. "Let's go," he said. "We have a long drive back."

"Three hours," House said. "What's the hurry? I haven't got a patient."

"Four hours, because _I'm_ driving back," Wilson said. "And I want to stop somewhere on the way."

"You've got to be joking!" House said an hour later, and his tone implied that he meant it. He'd been liberal with ridicule at the idea of visiting the Beatles' birthplace, but Wilson suspected that secretly he hadn't been all that unwilling to go. There was no doubt, however, about his opinion on the sanity of visiting the 'National Trust property of Lyme Park, house and garden', as the sign they had just passed advertised.

"It's one of the largest houses in Britain, it's got an interesting mix of architectural styles – an Elizabethan front, a mix of Baroque and Palladian styles – and the gardens are said to be splendid," Wilson said neutrally, pulling up in the parking lot.

"Says your travel guide. Does it also say that it's frequented by busloads of gerontosauruses and slit-eyed tourists?" Amnesia hadn't improved House's grasp of political correctness.

Wilson got out of the car.

"I'm hungry," House whined behind him.

"Two tickets for the grounds and the house, please," Wilson said to the lady at the ticket counter, sliding his credit card through the hole in the glass pane.

"It's gonna start raining any moment, and you have a cough already."

Brushing aside this heartfelt concern for his wellbeing, Wilson showed the tickets to the man at the turnstile, who waved them through. "The house is straight ahead, but you get the best view from over there by the lake," the man said helpfully.

"Thanks," Wilson said.

"I'm too tired to walk …. o-o-o-o-oh!" House said, as they rounded a copse, giving them an unimpeded view of the mansion they were visiting. "Pemberley! Wilson, you sly girl, you never told me that you'd cast your eye on Mr Darcy." The tiredness was wiped off his face as he inspected Wilson with a mixture of amusement and curiosity. "Let me guess: you and your girl-friends get together for long P&P nights with glasses of Chardonnay and lots of chocolate, and then you keep hitting the back button when Colin Firth rises from the garden pond like Venus from the waves."

House's surmise wasn't all that far off. "My second wife, Bonnie, and her friends used to do that. I'd cook for them and make snacks."

That had been during the first years of their marriage, before he'd started staying late at work or dropping in on House to 'see how he was coping' or meeting up with colleagues after work to 'keep in touch', and all those other excuses he'd thought up to get away from the unmitigated boredom at home.

"They'd break out in squeals of delight during the lake scene. And yes, they kept replaying it. _Keep_ replaying it," he corrected himself. "I imagine they still have their P &P nights, but I don't get invited anymore."

"You dragged me here because your ex has the hots for Colin Firth?" House mocked. He leaned over from behind, resting his chin on Wilson's shoulder so he could murmur in his ear. "Oh, come on, Wilson, admit it – you thought he looked sexy in that wet shirt with his nipples showing. There's no shame in that: a tall, broody guy, with dark curls and those intense eyes that make you feel like only you can allay the loneliness that lurks within."

Wilson shook his head to clear away the image House was evoking. "Actually," he said rather primly, "my wife's friends used to say that I look like Colin Firth."

House drew back. "You're kidding."

"Well, I was a bit younger and slimmer, and I have dark hair," Wilson said defensively.

House looked him up and down, his lips pursed. "Could be, I suppose. But we'd have to do the ultimate test to be sure. Go jump in." He waved his hand in the direction of the lake and started stomping towards it.

"Now _you're_ kidding," Wilson said.

House, heading down to the lake at a remarkable pace, threw back over his shoulder, "We can only see if you resemble Colin Firth if you're as wet as he was. I dare you to jump in."

"Don't be ridiculous," Wilson said weakly.

"Wuss!"

"There's a sign saying that swimming in the lake is strictly prohibited," Wilson said, pointing to the offending object.

House drew up at the edge of the lake, his eyes gleaming. "I double dare you!"

"Where are we – in kindergarten?"

But House just stood there smirking knowingly. Wilson cast a quick glance around. The park was fairly empty, and no one was heading their way. There was a group of tourists about fifty yards away, but they were moving away from them, towards the house.

"Oh, okay," Wilson said. "Hang onto my coat and my shoes." He slipped out of his shoes and socks and flung his coat down on the pile.

"You have to dive in over there," House said, pointing to a spot halfway round the circumference of the lake, "and come up just about here."

"Forget it!" Wilson said. "If this is about how I look in a wet t-shirt, then it doesn't matter how far I swim. I'm jumping in from here." And he moved over to a spot only twenty yards away, where he gingerly dipped a toe into the water. "It's cold!" he said, pulling his foot back with a yelp of surprise.

"What did you expect – the weather's been crappy. Come on! Colin Firth also had to jump in the day they had the location; _he_ didn't get to choose the sunniest day of the year either."

"He got paid for it," Wilson muttered, crouching down in preparation for the dive.

"You get honour and glory …," he heard House say as the water leapt towards him.

The first thing he saw when he surfaced was House's Smartphone aimed at him. "… And a new picture on Facebook."

The second thing he saw was three security guards heading their way. Crap!

"Sir, I must ask you to leave the water immediately!" one of them barked.

"Gladly," Wilson answered glowering at House, who was grinning manically. He waded towards the shore, water streaming off him. He felt like a waterlogged rat and he probably looked like one too. So much for the sexy, broody Darcy aura!

"I'm afraid there's a fifty pound fine," another guard, a woman in her mid-forties who looked as though she normally sold pastries in the food shop, said somewhat apologetically.

"Fifty pounds?" Wilson said and sneezed.

"Bless you! Yes, I'm sorry. We had to introduce a fine, because people kept hopping into the lake the first years after the series aired. Haven't had an Incident for quite a few years now, have we?" she said to the other two.

"No," one of her colleagues confirmed. "And I don't remember any involving just men," he added, giving them a suspicious look.

Wilson shuffled awkwardly. He was freezing and he'd rather have this over with. "Do you take American Express?"

House intervened. "Couldn't you waive the fine? I mean, if you don't have that many 'incidents' any more … We did this for his wife who, uh, couldn't come. She thinks he looks like Colin Firth." His tone indicated what _he_ thought of that.

"They all think that," one of the men muttered. But the woman had tipped her head sideways, giving Wilson a kindly look.

"I think he does look a bit like Colin Firth," she said with a warm smile for Wilson.

House rolled his eyes. "He's much too short, he's got a totally different physique, and just look at those eyebrows!"

The woman frowned in thought. "Maybe I'm getting him mixed up with that other actor. You know, the one who was in that Shakespeare adaption with Kenneth Branagh. _He's_ very good-looking too."

"Thanks," Wilson said. Why anyone would think he resembled Keanu Reeves beat him, but he hoped they could go back to the car soon, where he had dry clothes.

"I think we can waive the fine," the woman said with finality, giving her two colleagues a hard stare. They shrugged.

"Oh, and could you take a picture of us, please?" House said with his smarmiest expression, handing the woman his Smartphone. He draped an arm around Wilson's sopping shoulders and grinned at the phone. Wilson smiled weakly.

"For his 'wife', eh?" the surly guard said, glowering at them with homophobic certainty.

"There you go. And have a good time!" the woman said, returning House's Smartphone.

"So what?" they heard her say to her colleagues as they walked away. " _I_ think they were sweet."


	5. Diagnosis

**Christmas 2015**

_The plane is off the ground before Wilson dares to look at Cuddy. "He's got a patient," he says. "You know how he is."_

" _Yes," Cuddy answers shortly._

_Rachel, jammed between them in the middle seat, asks, "How who is?"_

" _Pete," Cuddy says. "When he has to diagnose a patient – to figure out what's wrong with him or her – he forgets everything else."_

" _Oh. Did he forget about us?"_

" _Probably."_

" _Doesn't matter," Rachel says cheerfully. "We found the airport without him, didn't we?"_

" _We certainly did," Wilson says, smiling at her._

_Cuddy rolls her eyes. "She's like my therapist. 'Three things that you did well, Lisa, since our last session'," she quotes. "She calls it 'an exercise in positive thinking, aimed at building up self-esteem'."_

" _That shouldn't be too difficult for you," Wilson says._

" _You'd be surprised at how difficult it can be," Cuddy says darkly, wondering whether Wilson's complimentary statement isn't an insult in disguise._

" _Are we playing the 'three things' game?" Rachel chimes in. "Can I start?" Without waiting for a reply, she continues, "I brushed my teeth this morning."_

" _I should hope so!" Cuddy says. "I don't think that counts."_

" _Without being told to!" Rachel explains. "So I did that well, because you didn't have to keep reminding me to do it."_

" _Oh, all right," Cuddy concedes. "That was good of you. It's my turn. Let me see: I didn't yell at Pete all week, even though he made me want to tear my hair out. … No, wait, that doesn't count, because that wasn't something I_ did, _but something I_ didn't _do. It has to be an active deed, not an omission," she explains to Wilson. "I'll have to rephrase that …"_

" _Come on, Mom," Rachel whines. "You're not allowed to take so long."_

_Cuddy takes a deep breath. "Too much pressure here." She puts in a dramatic pause before saying, "Stated positively, I kept my temper with Pete."_

" _See, that wasn't so difficult," Wilson says in his best amateur therapist manner._

" _Your turn, Wilson."_

" _I remembered to call House 'Pete'," Wilson says._

" _So what?" Rachel promptly counters. "So did I - it's no biggie."_

" _You don't get to question the other players' achievements," Cuddy says._

" _It's an achievement for me because I've been calling him House the past, oh, twenty years, and it's difficult to change old habits," Wilson explains to Rachel. "Anyway, it's your turn."_

" _I played with Wilson every day," Rachel says, giving her mother a challenging stare. Both adults can't help smiling._

" _Yes, that's an achievement, considering I'm rotten at all of your games," Wilson concurs. "Cuddy?"_

" _I entrusted Rachel to the hotel's babysitting service for two whole hours!"_

" _And she survived!" Wilson says with a hint of sarcasm. Cuddy reaches across Rachel to slap his shoulder playfully._

" _I did my homework assignments. That's three things for me!" Rachel crows, holding up three fingers._

_Wilson generously overlooks that she's taken his turn, while Cuddy gives her a hard stare. "Your homework is nowhere near done," she says._

" _You don't get to question other players' cheesements – whatever that word was!" Rachel parrots her mother's earlier statement._

"Achievements _," Cuddy corrects. "Oh, okay! Wilson, you've still got two 'cheesements' open."_

" _Wilson, can I have your iPad?" Rachel asks hopefully, losing interest in their game now that her part is done._

" _Sure." Wilson retrieves it from the backpack at his feet and hands it to Rachel. Then he turns back to Cuddy, frowning in concentration. "Staying off the booze doesn't count?" he asks hopefully._

_Cuddy shakes her head, smirking. "Not unless you can bend it to give it an active spin."_

_Wilson is quiet for a moment. "I took a day off to do some sight-seeing by myself," he says rather self-consciously._

_Cuddy smiles warmly. "That's good! You don't have to babysit him, you know."_

_Wilson sighs, massaging his forehead. "I know. It's just so frustrating, watching him struggle with his work environment, doing all the stuff that used to get him fired over and over again. And yet, when I tell him he'll get himself fired, he doesn't believe me or he doesn't care. I'm not sure which it is."_

" _I've persuaded Dr Wesley to give Pete a team," Cuddy says._

_Wilson's mouth drops open. He had no idea that Cuddy has been fraternising with the enemy. "How'd you do that?"_

" _I went to see him yesterday and made a few 'suggestions'."_

" _You … told him how to do his job? And he didn't tell you to – what do they say here? – to 'sod off'?"_

" _Of course I didn't tell him how to do his job!" Cuddy says unconvincingly. "I merely mentioned a few do's and don'ts, which he'll probably ignore. But he was much too polite to say so or to tell me to mind my own business. He offered me cookies and tea and even said that it was lovely talking to me!" She gives Wilson a look that says,_ So there!

" _Then what makes you think he'll give House – sorry, Pete – a team?"_

" _Oh, he sent me an email today saying that once he's got the funding sorted out, Pete will get his fellows. I guess the team was the only one of my concepts that Wesley understood: I doubt he grasped my meaning when I told him not to let Pete get bored or make him do things he doesn't want to do."_

" _Wow, that's – great! Definitely something for your 'things I did well' list." Wilson rubs his upper lip in thought. Finally he says, "I can't think of a third thing."_

" _You put up with us for a whole week without complaint, even though you'd have had a better time without us. I'd never have managed this," Cuddy nods at Rachel who, absorbed in a game, is oblivious to the adults, "without you."_

_Wilson looks confused. "I'd have had 'a better time without you'? Cuddy, I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed being with you and Rachel. This wasn't a sacrifice!"_

" _See? Sometimes you don't even notice the good you do for others."_

* * *

**April 2016**

"Thymoma," Candidate #5 said confidently. "Malignant; stage II, type B2, I'd say, but I'd need a biopsy to narrow it down. The cough could be unrelated, but in view of the size of the tumour it's unlikely. The tumour is definitely pressing on the oesophagus."

He passed the scans and blood test results over to House and looked to Wilson for confirmation. His smile faded when he saw Wilson's expression. His eyes flickered to and fro between Wilson and House, a wary expression on his face. "You – didn't know, Dr Wilson?"

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck. House, immersed in the scans with his forehead furrowed, didn't react at all. The initial low rumble that had risen among the other candidates died down into a shocked silence.

"I'm … I'm sorry," the candidate said awkwardly, looking from House to Wilson and back again. "I assumed that you knew the diagnosis already and that you were just testing us."

" _I assumed!_ " House mimicked him, rolling his eyes dramatically. "The two words that preface every imaginable stupidity." To the room at large he said, "These scans suck. Can't see the extent of the tumour. We need detailed scans of the lungs, the pericardium, and the surrounding blood vessels, and a biopsy."

There was no movement in the room. Wilson stared at a spot on the wall, wondering why the white paint was pulsating in such an annoying manner. And then there was this buzzing in his ears that drowned out most of what House was yelling at his candidates.

"Schedule the scans – yes, you, you moron! … Tomorrow at eight. … Go!"

Tinnitus, on top of his cold and the thymoma. No, he was being silly; he didn't have a cold, just a thymoma. Which was good, he supposed: he wouldn't have to deal with a cold in addition to having cancer.

'Always look on the bright side of life!' Monty Python sang in his head.

––––-

House pored over the CT scans, his chin cradled on one hand, the other hand tapping a pencil rhythmically on his desk. Wilson, standing at the window of the office and looking down at the traffic with sightless eyes, rubbed his sternum. Now that he knew the reason for the soreness, that unrelenting pressure in his chest, he was surprised that he hadn't come to the right conclusion himself.

"Stage II," House finally said, looking at Wilson with an inscrutable expression.

Wilson had figured that much out.

After a pause House continued, "It's a big, fat bastard, but it hasn't reached the mediastinal pleura. Complete resection of the thymus should do the job. There's no need for radiation or chemo."

Doubtless.

"You should get a biopsy done when you get back to the States," House added after another silence. (He'd cancelled the biopsy that morning after considering the medical implications of doing an invasive procedure on someone who should fly back home as soon as possible.)

Yes, he should.

House's limited supply of patience was evidently exhausted. "Wilson, don't be an idiot. You're an oncologist. You know that thymoma, _stage II thymoma_ , is not a death sentence. Currently, survival rates lie at over 80%."

"For the next five years. After that …"

"Survival rates based on the treatment available five years ago or longer. Your odds are better, given the advances in the field. Have you re-scheduled your flight back?"

Wilson stared at him blankly. He felt numb, listless. Why would he want to …? Oh, yes, he needed to get back to the States to get the biopsy done. "Not yet."

House rose, making a shooing motion with his hands. "Then go, do!"

House had a meeting with the hospital administration, probably about his new team, so Wilson went back to the hotel by himself. He sank down on the bed, his head in his hands.

When he looked up again, the light in the room had changed. He rose heavily and got his travel documents out of the hotel safe.

"Hello? My name is James Wilson, booking code PNKR25."

"One moment," the cool female voice at the other end said. "BA 0173 London Heathrow to New York JFK, on April 24, is that right?"

"Yes."

"What can I do for you, Dr Wilson?"

"I …" Wilson's throat was dry. "I need to reschedule my flight. What's the earliest flight I can take?"

"Let me see. … I can offer you a seat on a flight this evening at 8 p.m., check-in is two hours earlier. Would that suit you?"

He looked at the clock. "Yes, that would be fine."

"All right, I'm booking you on BA 0183 from Heathrow at 8 p.m. You should get a confirmation email in a few moments."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"No. No, thank you." He hung up.

He got up and walked aimlessly around the hotel room, tossing odds and ends onto the bed for later packing – the adapter and charger for his cell phone, the latest Bill Bryson that he'd bought at the airport on the way down, a souvenir T-shirt he'd bought for Rachel, his travel guide. Then he phoned the front desk to tell them he'd be checking out in an hour.

House didn't call.

He decided to take a shower. Perhaps that would help him to concentrate, to shake off that stifling feeling that everything was closing in on him.

After the shower he still had half an hour to kill. He pulled out his clothes and stacked them on the bed, folded his shirts, got his toothbrush and his shaving kit out of the bathroom, checked through all the drawers and under the bed.

House still hadn't called. Wilson tried calling him, but House's phone went straight to voicemail. Wilson hesitated, breathing seconds of silence onto voicemail before telling House to call him back. Then he texted Cuddy to tell her he was returning.

He tossed his things into his suitcase, throwing the neatly folded shirts in haphazardly among boxer shorts and socks, knowing as he did so that he'd hate himself for his slovenliness when he unpacked his suitcase in New York.

He was in the cab when House finally returned his call.

"You're where?"

"On the way to the airport," Wilson repeated patiently, leaning his head against the backrest with his eyes closed. "My flight is leaving at eight."

"That's – great!" House said.

"I suppose so."

"Are you gonna be okay?"

"Yeah," Wilson said, infusing his voice with energy that he didn't feel. "Sure. The sooner I get back, the sooner this will be over."

"Need me to come to the airport?" House asked.

Wilson could hear the reluctance in House's voice, so he said what was expected of him, as he always did. "No, I'll be fine. And you'll be over in five weeks anyway, won't you?"

"Yeah, I'll see you in Baltimore in May." After a short awkward silence he disconnected the call.

Wilson stared at the phone in his hands, observing the slight unsteadiness in his hands as he held it. He was not going to cry, he was so not going to cry! There was no reason to cry: he was going back home to get his thymoma checked out, and by the time House came to hold a talk at that conference in Baltimore, he'd have had the tumour resectioned and be fit as a fiddle, and they'd both laugh at the memory of the applicant's face when he'd realised that Wilson hadn't known about his cancer.

But at the moment it didn't feel funny at all.


	6. Wilson's Secret

**May 2016**

"You're what?" Cuddy said inelegantly.

"Retiring," Arthur Rosenbaum repeated. "I'm sorry to spring it on you like this, Lisa, but – I have my reasons. Mabel …" He paused, sighing and staring out of the window. "Mabel hasn't been well lately."

_You can't do this to me! I can't handle it yet – you were supposed to stay another two years, until Rachel turns ten!_ Cuddy screamed silently as she formed her features into something less akin to panic and closer to eager interest. "I'm sorry to hear that," she heard herself say. "I hope it's nothing serious." _Of course it's something serious if he's retiring because of it!_

"Dementia," Rosenbaum said briefly. He gave her a pained smile. "We've decided to be pro-active about it and inform our friends and family, so that she can have as active a life as is possible under the circumstances."

"That's great, and very brave," Cuddy said, calling up a mental image of Mabel Rosenbaum. A short pretty woman of no more than fifty-five, she estimated. Dementia at that age – what a diagnosis! When had she last seen her? She hadn't been at the Christmas party or at the last fundraiser.

"I've talked to the chairman about it and to HR: you are to take over as interim dean until the board confirms your appointment as my successor."

"Thanks," Cuddy murmured. She schooled her expression to mirror a delicate mixture of commiseration for Rosenbaum's personal problems and muted delight at the position being offered to her.

Rosenbaum held up a warning hand. "That could take some time since hospital policy demands that the post be publicly advertised."

"So I may not get it," Cuddy stated. This was bad news. She was way past the age where she'd be considered a dynamic and innovative candidate for the post; her main asset was her experience as former dean of PPTH, whereas her present post as head of Family and Community Healthcare didn't carry much clout.

"Oh, I don't think you'll have much competition. You have years of experience, and your efficiency is much appreciated," Rosenbaum said benignly.

But then, he'd hardly tell her that she was to keep his chair warm for someone else for an indeterminate period of time, after which she would be relegated to the sidelines again. If he did, she'd hand in her resignation, as he well knew, and go looking for greener pastures. She mightn't be able to land a top administrative post, but a position similar to her present one should be well within her grasp.

"I'll be announcing my resignation in a week's time; my contract obliges me to give at least two months' notice, but I'm counting on you …"

Cuddy zoned out. This was exactly the sort of situation she'd striven to avoid. Rosenbaum wanted her to take over straightaway, with no on-the-job training at all. Once she was interim dean, she'd have to keep her own department running, because they wouldn't find a successor for her there until she'd officially gotten the job as dean. _If_ she got the job, because if she didn't, she'd be putting in months of double workload, all for the doubtful pleasure of handing over a well-organised hospital to the lucky bastard who did get the job.

But if she refused the post, that would be it. She'd spend the rest of her life holding talks at local high schools about safer sex and contraception, distributing fliers on the benefits of vaccinations, and trying to sweet talk the board into increasing the funding for her perpetually understaffed clinic.

She got home without noticing where she was driving, her prefrontal cortex compiling lists of things to do: people to contact, appointments to schedule, responsibilities to delegate, and so on. She couldn't send Rachel to stay with Julia because she'd miss school, but maybe she could go to Emma's place after school for the next one or two weeks; she'd up her household help's working hours for a few months and she could employ a student nurse to babysit a few times per week. With a bit of supervision her deputy should be able to run her department. She'd reduce department meetings to a bare minimum for the next month and her assistant would have to take over the unloved task of preparing her budgeting. That was what assistants were for, wasn't it?

Wilson was in the kitchen, sorting dishes from the dishwasher back into her cupboards. She paused at the door, watching him. Wilson was another source of perpetual worry. She'd persuaded him to come over to Philly for the weekend before driving down to Baltimore, a wise move judging by what she'd seen the last forty-eight hours, but not one calculated to increase her peace of mind.

Wilson looked up, probably alerted to her presence by the whirring noise the cogs in her head were making.

"Shouldn't you be on your way to Baltimore?" she asked.

"I'm not going," he said.

Cuddy looked at him enquiringly.

"To the airport to pick House up," Wilson elucidated.

That was – unexpected. Unless, of course, Wilson was being sensible about driving in his present state. She entered the kitchen and moved casually to the sink right next to him. His eyes were clear, but there was a faint whiff of alcohol emanating from him.

" _I_ can drive," Cuddy offered, mentally compiling a list of arrangements to be made before she could leave for Baltimore. Rachel would have to spend the night at her neighbour Louisa's place. Then she'd need to buy gas, and oh, she was supposed to phone her lawyer, but she could do that from the car. And damn, she'd been hoping to get the groceries done this evening, but she guessed they could survive off the contents of her freezer for another day. But how would they get Wilson's car to Baltimore if he drove down with her now and stayed there? Because _she_ had no intention of doing more than dropping him off; she wouldn't foist her presence on Pete. If he wanted to see her, he'd have to say so – a glaring omission on his part so far.

"Thanks, but there's no need. I … I don't feel up to it."

Cuddy stared at him. "You've been looking forward to Pete's visit for months, you've taken the week off to have time for him, and now you tell me you don't feel up to it?"

Wilson wouldn't meet her eyes. "I've been tired and run-down all week. I think I should take it easy," he finally said. "And you know that House won't take it easy."

Cuddy backed down. Wilson was somewhat pale, and he had lost weight. Then there was that persistent cough of his. He insisted that he'd caught it jumping into some pond in England, but that had been _weeks_ ago. He really should get it looked into, but Wilson had always had the tendency to neglect his own health, focusing his attention on other people's ailments instead.

"When are you going down to Baltimore then?" she asked, thinking that if he was staying another night or two, he might as well put in a visit to Nolan the next day. She had contacted Nolan the moment she'd realised that Wilson had relapsed, and although Nolan had refused to get involved as long as the initiative didn't come from Wilson, he had indicated that he'd fit Wilson in at short notice as soon as Wilson showed an inclination to seek help.

Wilson sat down at the table and studied his hands. "I think I'll drive back to New York tomorrow, if that's okay with you."

Cuddy sucked in a sharp breath.

"I can also leave now, if you'd prefer," Wilson added, misinterpreting her reaction – probably deliberately, she decided.

She sat down opposite him, propping her chin on her hand. "What's going on here?" she asked.

"Nothing," Wilson said evasively. "I haven't been in to work all that regularly lately, and I need to show my face there more often. I'm not a maverick like House, who can afford to come and go as he pleases."

Now that she came to think of it, Wilson had at no point said that he was spending the weekend with her in order to facilitate his trip to Baltimore. She'd invited him over assuming that he'd want to kill two birds with one stone, but he'd accepted her invitation without commenting on his further plans. True, he hadn't expressly denied that he'd go to Baltimore to meet up with Pete, but neither had he stated that he'd do so.

She came to a quick decision. "It's no problem; the sheets are still on your bed in the guest room. You can stay for as long as you like."

"Thanks."

"No problem." She got up. "There's some lasagna in the fridge – don't wait for me."

Wilson gaped at her. "Where are you going?"

"Baltimore."

 

* * *

 

His suitcase was larger than cabin baggage was supposed to be, but he'd played the cripple card by exaggerating his limp and twirling his running prosthetic, the Ossur blade, very blatantly in front of the check-in desk, so he was one of the first to exit the baggage return area. As a result, he wasn't really surprised not to spot Wilson, even though he had him down as someone who'd come to the airport well in advance, park his car in a remote corner of the parking deck so that no one would scrape his paint, suss out the arrival area, and position himself where he couldn't be overlooked. Then again, maybe Wilson had come so early that he'd opted for a cup of coffee and was now being entrapped by some well-endowed barista.

He'd just put down his suitcase in order to search his pocket for the address of his conference hotel when a well-known voice hailed him.

"Pete!" Lisa, slightly out of breath, was hurrying towards him. He hadn't spotted her earlier because he'd been scanning the crowds roughly ten inches above her head. She was dressed casually in jeans and flat shoes, which was unflattering but unsurprising. If anything was surprising, it was her presence here. Not to mention awkward.

"Where's Wilson?" Wilson was supposed to meet him at the airport and stay for the conference. He'd booked a flexible ticket back to London so as to be able to extend his stay for as long as Wilson had time for him …

"Good to see you too," Lisa said drily, not even trying to hug him. So Wilson had told her about Gail. She finally settled for a quick squeeze of his arm before turning away to the terminal exit.

He trailed behind her, trying to gauge her mood from what he could see of her, which wasn't much. She was marching at a rapid pace ( _"I was in a rush, so the car's in a no-parking zone"_ ) a few steps in front of him, so he only had her stance and her movements from which to draw his conclusions. She was late and Wilson wasn't here, so something must have gone wrong. No emergency, because she wasn't emotional or haggard, merely tense. But whatever it was, it was upsetting her over and above what was to be expected, even taking into consideration that she was here to pick up her ex-ex-boyfriend. (Or was it ex-ex-ex-boyfriend? He was beginning to lose count.) She'd relaxed instead of stiffening further on seeing him, almost as though she was relieved to see him here. So whatever the crisis, it wasn't connected to him. There was, however, the unnerving possibility that she expected help from him, otherwise why be relieved at the sight of him? In fact, it was practically a given that she wanted something from him, because even idiots who'd fried their hippocampus to the extent that they could hardly find their own bathroom without GPS didn't need to be escorted from the airport to a hotel located in the same city.

He tried again when they went through the doors of the terminal and out into the mild May evening. "Why are you picking me up?"

"Because Wilson is in no state to drive," she answered shortly.

He digested this. Had there been complications after Wilson's operation? It struck him that he had no idea when Wilson's resection had taken place. Wilson had been pretty uncommunicative recently, but he'd put it down to the stress of having to deal with the thymoma. (Besides, he'd been distracted himself.) Had some idiot doctor put him on chemo instead of resecting the tumour? Wilson was an oncologist of note, but even doctors were idiots about their own health. He amended that: doctors _especially_ were idiots about their health.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

Lisa swung round to face him, stopping him short. "I was hoping _you_ could tell me that," she said.

"Who, me?" he said, his innocence not faked for a change.

"He toppled off his flight from London three days before he was due to return, plastered to the gills, and he has been drinking ever since," Lisa snapped. "You want me to believe that this hasn't got anything to do with you?" She stared at him accusingly.

Drinking? Oh, crap! But was this his fault? Pete resolutely blocked out the memory of his last conversation with Wilson before Wilson's departure. Wilson had called to inform him that he'd booked a flight back to New York that evening at eight, and he'd asked whether he'd see Pete again before he left. But he'd had tickets for the opera; they'd cost a mint, and Gail loved Puccini …

He tried to ignore the jolt in the pit of his stomach when he thought of Gail, focusing on Lisa instead. "It wouldn't have anything to do with his thymoma," he countered sarcastically.

Lisa's eyes widened. "Thymoma? Wilson?" she said. "Are you sure? … How do you know?"

"Diagnosed him," he said shortly. "Well, technically my job applicants diagnosed him, but since they weren't employed by the hospital at that point, I guess it counts as my diagnosis."

Lisa rubbed her forehead. "How bad is it?"

Pete grimaced. "We didn't do a biopsy, but judging by the scans it was Stage I or II. He's an oncologist; he knows what he's doing," he added, not allowing his unease at the news of Wilson's relapse and his absence at the airport to surface.

"He didn't tell me," Lisa said. "I thought you and he had some sort of misunderstanding, but this?" She gestured helplessly. "Why wouldn't he tell me?"

"Why would he?" Pete asked. "You'd probably nag at him to stop drinking – even more than you already do – and be twenty sorts of irritating." Since Lisa still looked worried he added, "He's probably taken care of it and doesn't want you to get your panties all in a twist about a fairly harmless tumour that has excellent survival rates."

Lisa looked unconvinced, but dropped the topic – for the moment.

In the car Lisa took the slip of paper with his hotel's address from him, programmed it into the Satnav, and drew away from the curb without any further comment. She was deep in thought all the way to the conference venue, her only utterances a few expletives directed at other drivers.

He didn't mind; Wilson's relapse was enough food for thought, because no matter what he'd said to Lisa, he had a bad feeling about this. A simple resection should have done the job, but now he came to think of it, Wilson had been oddly silent about his carcinoma in their few recent communications, and Lisa would have noticed if he'd gone MIA for a few days to get the procedure done. Then again, maybe she wouldn't. Philly wasn't exactly next door to New York, and they probably didn't see each other all that regularly.

At the hotel she handed her car keys to the valet and followed him inside. He wasn't surprised; she had driven over from Philly with an agenda that undoubtedly included browbeating him into having a heart-to-heart with Wilson about his drinking, and she was unlikely to give up on that just because Wilson's case had just proved to have a further level of suckotage.

He got his room key and his conference package from reception and turned to Lisa. "I'm taking my stuff upstairs," he said.

She nodded. "I'll wait for you in the bar."

He didn't hurry; he unpacked, took a longish shower, inspected the contents of the mini bar, fortified himself with bourbon, and then went down again. Eyeing the hotel's front entrance he briefly considered making a run for it, but jet lag was beginning to kick in and he probably couldn't avoid Lisa forever. So he made his way to the bar where a decidedly pissed Lisa was sitting on a stool, nursing something that looked disgustingly non-alcoholic. He slid onto the stool next to her.

"I've been hit on by at least three creeps," she remarked. "You'd think they attend conferences for the sole purpose of picking up women for one-night stands."

"Is there any other purpose?" he asked, giving her the once-over.

"Let's not even pretend that this isn't important for your career," Lisa said, ignoring his leer. It was his first conference since his reinvention; if he did well here, it would cement his shaky standing in the medical community. "You're a brilliant talker when you put your mind to it," she added, placing her hand on his forearm as though sensing the nervousness he was sure he was concealing well.

He stared down at her hand, not sure whether he wanted to allow himself to be reassured or whether he'd rather eschew the comfort and the closeness that the gesture implied. Lisa gave his arm a quick squeeze, and then withdrew her hand, sparing him the bother of making a decision.

The barkeeper brought him his drink, a double whisky. He'd anticipated Lisa's disapproval – to be honest, irritating her had been one of the items on his agenda when ordering the drink – and he supposed she had a point. As an addict he should be keeping a close eye on his intake of potentially intoxicating substances, but hey, he wasn't a saint. And life sucked.

"How's work?" Lisa asked innocently.

He stared at her suspiciously, but her expression was bland. She had no idea that she was rubbing salt into an open wound. He opted for deflection. "Practicing your small-talk skills on me in anticipation of your future position as dean?" he asked.

"Small talk is like driving: you don't forget it, and I had fifteen years at PPTH to hone my skills."

They were silent again, Pete sipping his whisky with a constancy engendered less by the quality of the drink than by the desire to be solidly plastered before he had to face a lonely hotel room. If Wilson had been here … but he wasn't, so there was nothing much else to do.

Lisa twisted and turned her glass. "He's hiding something," she finally said. "If he's had the resection done and everything is fine, then why didn't he tell me anything about it? And why is he still coughing?"

"Maybe he's on chemo to shrink the tumour before they do the resection: it was a pretty big bastard." That didn't explain why he was keeping Lisa in the dark. Thymoma was no big deal as far as cancers went. Maybe he'd gone for some experimental treatment, something that would worry Lisa. But Wilson was not the type for experiments. He was your poster boy for safe, proven, 'what's good enough for everyone else is good enough for me' medicine.

"In that case he shouldn't be drinking," Lisa stated, apparently forgetting that Wilson shouldn't be drinking anyway. But she was right: the thymoma treatment protocol recommended cisplatin in combination with doxorubicin, and the latter wasn't exactly easy on the liver. "If I manage to bring Wilson here, will you talk sense into him?"

"Sure," he said, not meaning it. He'd worry about talking to Wilson if and when Lisa managed to drag him to Baltimore. "What makes you think he'll heed my good advice? It's not like I practice what you want me to preach." He lifted his drink in a mock salute, emptied his glass and signalled to the barkeeper for another one, ignoring the first hints of wooziness. He should have eaten something before going for the on-board drinks, he supposed.

Lisa was sitting very straight, very tense. She tapped her fingernails against her glass. "I get why Wilson wouldn't be keeping you updated on his thymoma, but that doesn't explain why you haven't been keeping tabs on him."

"He's a big boy; he can look after himself. Oh, and what was the name of that famous oncologist again?" He rubbed his chin as though pondering the question. "Weston? Watson? No, I think it was Wilson, James Wilson."

She gave a low, incredulous laugh. "Pete, you're the nosiest person I've ever met. I can't even count the number of times you've hacked into my computer and I know you did the same with Wilson's. There's no way you'd stay off his back after diagnosing him, unless …."

Struck by a sudden thought she examined him intently. She was going to come to one of her irritating conclusions in a moment, the same way Wilson did regularly, and it bugged the hell out of him. It wasn't that either of them was particularly good at putting two and two together; they just benefitted from years spent observing him coupled with a few lucky guesses. If he couldn't shut her up, he could at least shut her out. He toasted her mockingly with his glass before tipping it down his throat in one gulp, a gesture that he regretted instantly.

Lisa regarded him with a hint of mockery in her otherwise grim smile. The smile faded when he raised a hand to catch the barkeeper's attention. "This isn't just about Wilson," she surmised thoughtfully. "You aren't getting wasted because of Wilson, because you weren't sober when you reached here, _before_ you knew he wasn't coming."

Definitely time to distract her. He propped his chin on his hand so he could leer comfortably down her top. "Could we talk about something more pleasant?" he suggested.

"Like getting you up to your room?" Lisa suggested, intercepting his drink and giving the barkeeper a glare. She rose, tugging at his elbow.

"Sounds great," he said with a lecherous grin and rose in turn, his irritation at being deprived of his liquor receding as he considered the possibility of getting into her pants. True, she wasn't escorting him up with the intention of landing in the sheets with him, but intentions could change and resolves could alter. Lisa hadn't been good at resisting him the last time he'd been in the US.

As he straightened, however, the ground under his feet shifted disconcertingly, and he was forced to cling to Lisa tighter than he'd intended. He quickly masked his steadying grip as a grope, but judging by her eye roll she wasn't fooled. She dug one hand into the back pocket of his pants ("Whoa, not so fast!" he said), pulled out his wallet, and tossed a bill onto the counter. Then she draped his arm over her shoulders and steered him towards the elevator.

Once inside, he let his hands roam further down, but she untangled herself, pushing him back.

"Keep your hands to yourself," she said. "God, you're wasted!"

Really, he wasn't as drunk as Lisa thought he was; as a matter of fact he was just a little tipsy, nicely blurred around the edges.

"Which room number?" Lisa asked.

He drew the key card out of his pocket and handed it to her. Those electronic key cards could be tricky things even when you were stone-cold sober. She marched out of the elevator and down the corridor, not waiting to see if he was following her. By the time he caught up with her – bloody death trap, that carpeting, for people with prosthetics! – she'd swiped the key card through the slot in the door and was holding it open for him.

"Bed for you, I think," Lisa said in a tone that broached no argument.

Damn, but she was sexy when she was bossy. And 'bed' was absolutely the right cue. Instead of moving towards the bed (or the bathroom, which was where he really needed to go) he embraced her clumsily, nuzzling her neck while his hands roamed down to her ass.

Lisa huffed an annoyed, "Pete!" at him, tugged his hands off her ass and pushed him away at arm's length, from which distance she contemplated him. "What's going on?" she asked.

Did they really have to talk? She used to be eager enough to do the dirty with him; what was her issue now? "What does it look like to you?" he asked.

"She's dumped you," Lisa stated. "Your colleague, the tall red-head."

"Look, if you're going to keep talking, you can go."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing," he muttered, his eyes sliding away to a spot on the wall. Why did everyone believe it was always his fault?

Lisa bit her lip worriedly. "She found out about – how you lost your leg?"

Nice euphemism for 'nearly killed your ex-girlfriend'! "She's not an idiot – though you could say she was insane to date me – and my reputation preceded me. She checked me out on the internet before she took up with me."

Lisa tipped her head sideways, scrutinising him. " _You_ dumped _her_ ," she said. "Oh, Pete!"

He searched her face for condemnation, but found commiseration there instead. He didn't need that. What kind of weird was that, anyway, to pity him if he'd ended the relationship rather than if he'd been kicked out on his sorry ass? Besides, the facts were different. "She found someone else, okay?"

Lisa looked plain incredulous. "What?"

Her amazement at his simple explanation was flattering, but what was so surprising about an attractive woman deciding that she deserved someone better? He flopped down on the bed, swung his legs up, crossed his ankles and clasped his hands beside his head. "It happens."

"Not to _you_ ," Lisa said with conviction.

"I believe it's happened before," he said pointedly.

"Neither Stacy nor I left you for another guy," Lisa said. "We left you because of _you_." She sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed a little self-consciously. "I didn't notice other guys when I was with you, and I doubt Stacy did."

She wasn't going to let this go without an explanation, so he said, "The Prodigal Husband came home," and shrugged nonchalantly, as though this wasn't much of a deal.

"Wilson said her husband left her for a student of his," Lisa half asked. He nodded. Lisa's face scrunched up in disgust. "He screws a woman half her age right under her nose, and then she takes him back?"

"'He drives a car through her house, and she takes him back?'" he mocked, imitating her. She merely rolled her eyes.

He contemplated his fingernails. "Twenty years of shared history, two kids, and a house. Can't blame her." He felt her hand on his shin, squeezing gently.

He looked at her; that was a mistake, he quickly realised. Her eyes were shining with sympathy, but that was the last thing he needed now. He didn't want to think about Gail; he wanted distraction, and she'd already denied him his liquor. He leaned forward and twisted a lock of her hair around one of his fingers, pulling her face towards his until it was almost close enough for him to kiss her. She pulled back sharply.

"This – is no solution," she said, rolling her hand.

"It's a great solution," he contradicted her. "We both have fun. And a happy ending." He waggled his eyebrows at her.

"You've got to be kidding."

"I'm always serious about sex."

"Pete," she said, rising from the bed, "I'm not a consolation prize, someone you go to bed with when you can't have the woman you want." She stared down at him, biting her lip. "If there's no more to this than rebound sex, then …"

"There isn't," he said with intentional brutality.

The effect was all that he could have desired. She turned on her heels and left the room.


	7. Confrontation and Consultation

It was a two hour drive back to Philly, which should have given her more than enough time to get herself sorted before she had to face Wilson, but the first half hour or so passed in a blur. She had crossed the Susquehanna and was approaching Wilmington before her brain would do anything but cough up disconnected facts on thymoma, such as the rate of incidence in the general population (which was neither here nor there, since Wilson had somehow managed to garner this rare species), progression (slow), survival rates (she didn't have those at her fingertips, but if she remembered correctly the prognosis was generally pretty good), and treatment (resection for the most part). She couldn't for the life of her remember whether adjuvant radiotherapy was indicated or what combination of drugs was recommended for chemo. Thymoma was simply too rare for its treatment to be a common subject of conversation in the doctors' lounge.

_You're evading the issue_ , she scolded herself. _Wilson will have all the facts at his fingertips, even if he's choosing to ignore them._

And that brought her back to the crux of the matter: Wilson. She hadn't been quite truthful with Pete regarding Wilson's absence tonight, partly out of consideration for his feelings and partly to avoid the repercussions for Wilson for as long as possible. For Wilson hadn't been too wasted to drive to Baltimore, although no one in their senses would have given him their car keys in view of his current propensity to end the evening in a bar. He had flatly refused to go collect Pete (or 'House', as Wilson had reverted to calling him) from the airport. Extrapolating from her past experience of their chequered relationship and his present intransigence, Cuddy had assumed that something or other that Pete had said or done had hurt Wilson to the point that he'd given up on their friendship. ( _Once again_ , she'd muttered to herself, grabbing her own car keys and rushing to drop Rachel off at the neighbour's place.) But past experience had also taught Cuddy that Wilson tended to snap out of his 'House peeves' sooner or later, and the less Pete knew about Wilson rejection, the easier it would be to glue the pieces together again. Pre-amnesia House had both needed and loved Wilson sufficiently to put up with the occasional roller coaster ride that Wilson had put both of them through, but Cuddy wasn't sure whether Pete felt that same irresistible tug towards his former friend. Even if he did, getting him to make overtures of peace would be an uphill battle. Far better to sit it out while limiting the damage they did to each other.

On the drive down to the airport she'd tried to figure out how to get the two men in her life close enough to each other that she'd be able to bash their heads together nice and hard. That was when she'd still believed that Wilson was sulking because Pete was neglecting him, a misconception to which Wilson had undoubtedly contributed his mite. When he'd toppled off the flight from London (escorted by a very pissed flight attendant) the only reason he'd given for his early return had been that Pete was too busy screwing willowy Irish psychologists to bother about him. It had sounded as though Pete had ignored him completely, leaving him to his own devices until he'd sought solace in alcohol and an early return. Oh, wily Wilson! She hadn't even suspected that the cause for Wilson's misery lay within himself.

She still wanted to bash their heads against something or other. Honestly, what was Wilson thinking, neglecting his thymoma for weeks? And surely Pete, as a former addict, knew better than to seek refuge in alcohol! But more than that, she wanted to scream out her rage at a deity in whose existence she hardly believed, and maybe she was gripping the steering wheel so hard because she'd like to clamp her hands around a certain psychologist's pale neck.

Screaming and raging, however, wasn't going to get her anywhere; she needed to prioritise.

Item 1 on the list: Pete's relationship problems.

There was nothing she could do about Pete's heartache except feel sorry for him, a sentiment that he'd resent, so it was best to file it away as a given. He'd get over it. _("Except, he never does," a Wilson-like voice noted.)_

Item 2: his alcohol consumption.

It was worrying; he was in danger of sliding back into old patterns. But it would keep – he'd always been good at snapping out of downright harmful habits if some other distraction caught his attention. _("Except for the times he didn't snap out of them," the Wilson-voice reminded her, but she quickly shushed it.)_

That left item 3: Wilson's cancer and the stand-off between Wilson and Pete.

Was Wilson ignoring his cancer because he felt neglected, or was he pushing Pete away because he wanted to be left in peace to deal with his illness as he pleased?

_Let's not get ourselves involved in 'chicken or egg' debates,_ she told herself sternly. It didn't really matter which problem she tackled first; if she managed to solve one problem, the other would most likely dissolve into thin air. Getting those two divas to talk to each other could take months; knocking sense into Wilson's head shouldn't take more than a few minutes. That was, if they were talking of bog-standard stage I thymoma here. Five weeks was a long time, but thymoma wasn't a particularly aggressive cancer. Even if it took her another four or five weeks to talk Wilson into sense and sobriety, he'd be fine.

Or wouldn't he? There had been something in Pete's expression – dismay? panic? – that had been at odds with his casual 'stage I or II' diagnosis.

At her apartment block she walked past the elevator and headed straight for the stairs. She lived on the top floor, but since she always had to use the elevator when she was with Rachel, the tug in her leg muscles was satisfying rather than annoying. The apartment was dark and quiet when she came back, only a sliver of light under the kitchen door showing that Wilson was still up and waiting for her. She hung up her coat and slipped out of her shoes. Then she stood in the dark hallway tapping her teeth with her forefinger before squaring her shoulders and entering the kitchen. Wilson sat at the table, a mug in front of him, ostensibly leafing through the daily paper. He looked up as she came in, but she didn't say anything, merely walking over to the coffee machine, a long-ago gift of House's. She smiled as she remembered the impropriety of it: House had attempted to outwit karma by 'doing good'.

Wilson, lulled into a false sense of security by her reminiscent smile, asked off-handedly, "So, how is he?"

Cuddy placed a cup under the spout, pressed the button and waited for the grinding and whirring to cease before she turned to Wilson, leaning back against the counter as she gave him a measured glance. "Not so good: that woman of his left him."

Wilson digested this. "That's – unexpected."

"Really?" Cuddy asked abstractedly, her mind elsewhere. Had Wilson been drinking in her absence or had he managed to stay sober? He wasn't visibly drunk, but then, he'd gotten good at concealing all outward signs. She was glad she'd got Rachel to spend the night at Louisa's place; when Wilson lost control completely, he was a loose canon.

Wilson, blissfully oblivious of the fact that he and not Pete was up in the dock, rose to Pete's defence. "He isn't always an ass. He can be different. Not a conventional romantic, but attentive and considerate in his own way."

Cuddy placed her mug on the table and sat down opposite Wilson. "I'm aware of that," she said in measured tones, filing away for later contemplation the information that Wilson didn't expect _her_ , Pete's previous girlfriend, to appreciate Pete's romantic potential. "I saw him with Stacy, remember?" She stirred her coffee, looking down into the swirling liquid. "He just couldn't be that way with me."

"Cuddy, that's not what I meant," Wilson protested, visibly distressed. "You – had to combine a work relationship with your private one. It was bound to lead to stress."

Cuddy patted his arm across the table. "Nice try, but I'm not an idiot. You don't need to try to make me feel better; I'm okay with it. I always knew I wasn't his first choice. I was the proverbial straw he was clutching at. That wasn't what split us up, anyway, and Pete's relationship skills aren't up for debate. He lost out to habit: the woman's husband came back."

"How's he coping?"

Cuddy watched Wilson surreptitiously as she stirred her coffee. If the question was a sign of genuine concern, then it meant that Wilson wasn't avoiding Pete because he'd given up on him, but because he wanted to sidestep Pete's peculiar brand of caring. Wilson was fidgeting, fingering the newspaper and creasing its edges, but there was no sign that the question was merely a polite phrase. She leaned forward, placing a soothing hand over his. "When were you planning on telling me about your thymoma?" she asked.

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. "He told you."

"What did you expect?" Cuddy asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I dunno; some respect for patient confidentiality, maybe?" Wilson groused, but Cuddy could see his heart wasn't in it.

"You're his friend, not his patient," Cuddy said. Maybe Wilson needed to be reminded that he had a friend.

"He diagnosed me," Wilson said, echoing what Pete had said earlier. "That makes him my physician, I guess."

"So, what are you doing about it?" Cuddy asked casually.

"I got more scans done and a biopsy," Wilson said, looking down at the table.

"And?"

Wilson was silent for a moment. Then he said, "It's too big for a resection."

"So you'll be getting – what? Chemo? Radiation?" Cuddy asked. But she didn't need to wait for Wilson's answer; his expression, guilty and sad, said it all.

"It's thymic carcinoma," he said, adding by way of explanation, "the one that used to be called type C thymoma. The survival rate is nowhere near as good as for other thymomas. I'd need a combination of radiation and chemo to shrink the tumour, and chemo after the resection – that's if the tumour shrinks sufficiently to be operable – and there's no guarantee that it'll go into remission. I'm … not doing it."

"Why not?" Cuddy asked, genuinely puzzled. What Wilson had just described was rigorous for thymoma, but not at all uncommon for other types of cancer. "You're the oncologist; you know better than anyone else …"

"Exactly! I know better than anyone else what it means to go through several rounds of chemo, to be weakened and in utter misery, to spend your days in hospital puking and shivering, having to ask the nurses to change your soiled diapers because you can't make it to the bathroom anymore, to keep on fighting, and for what? In the end, it'll have bought me a few months, but it'll have been a few months of a non-life, time spent in sterile walls among people I don't know.

"I've seen it happen often enough, Cuddy. God forgive me, I've advised my own patients to take that course time and again, hoping I'd buy them some quality time, but as often as not I subjected them to weeks of futile suffering. I'm not doing it."

"But if it works?"

"What then?" Wilson said. "What do I gain?" And he looked at his hands.

She looked at them too. They were bare, not even a tan line remaining from his wedding rings. She got his meaning, but she was unwilling to concede his point. "Wilson, you know that Rachel and I love you and would miss you," she said gently.

"Cuddy, I'm an alcoholic with whom you can't leave your daughter for a single evening. Besides," he held up his hand to stop her protest, "you did fine without me for years. You'll do fine without me when I'm gone."

"And Pete?" Not exactly a trump card under the circumstances, but she had to try.

"House has his own life."

"He's alone again. _And_ something's going on with his job. He wouldn't say anything about it, but I can make an educated guess based on his past employment history."

Wilson buried his face in his hands. From there he said in muffled tones, "Cuddy, I can't make life decisions based on the state of his love life or his work life. His life's a perpetual roller coaster ride, and I'm getting too old for the free fall phases and the loops. I'm getting off the ride."

Cuddy swallowed. "And if you don't get it treated?"

"Eight months, give or take." His calmness sounded rehearsed. It probably was.

A heavy silence hung in the air.

Cuddy changed tack. "You got scans and a biopsy done, so you've got an oncologist. Who are you seeing?"

Wilson avoided her eyes again. "I scheduled them myself." When Cuddy sat back letting out an exasperated breath, he said defensively, "I may not be practicing anymore, but I can still read scans and biopsy results. Based on those, the diagnosis and the prognosis won't change, no matter whom I consult. I've based my decision on facts that I am perfectly capable of interpreting. I don't need someone like me sweet-talking me into something I don't want to do!"

Cuddy rose and put away her cup. Then she contemplated Wilson, who was staring into space looking weary and miserable. Well, she could try to alleviate the misery, and it would buy her some time. "You're welcome to stay here for as long as you like, Wilson. If hospital isn't what you want, I'm sure we can engage a nurse or find a hospice."

"You accept my decision?"

"I can hardly drag you to chemo by your hair, can I?"

"What about Rachel? You don't want her to see me die."

She hadn't considered that. Okay, it would have to be a hospice – if she allowed things to get that far. But she hadn't done fighting yet; this was merely a strategic retreat. "We'll see when we get there," she said.

Wilson looked up, his eyes slightly damp. "Thanks, Lisa," he said as he rose. Then, at the door he turned and pointed a finger at her. "I know what you're planning: you think you can change my mind if you smother me with affection and surround me with family, but it won't work. I'm not changing my mind."

Cuddy waited until she heard the faucet in the bathroom, then she took out her cell and scrolled to Pete's number. It took a long time till he answered the phone, and when he did he sounded anything but happy. But he'd always been capable of snapping in and out of sleep and of functioning even when he was high and drunk, so she saw no reason to postpone this conversation.

"He hasn't had a resection," she said without any sort of prelude. "Nor is he getting chemo or radiation. He isn't doing anything about the damn tumour. It's thymic carcinoma, and he doesn't consider the survival rate high enough to bother with treatment."

There was relative silence at the other end; she could hear huffy breathing and creaking that signified that Pete was sitting up in bed. "Thymic carcinoma has a five-year survival rate of around 40%," Pete finally said. Trust him to have the figures at his fingertips even when he was jet-lagged and suffering from a hangover. "And this couldn't wait till tomorrow?"

"No, it couldn't, because although I've invited him to stay, he could be taking off for New York again any time, and then we won't be able to make him see sense," Cuddy snapped.

"'We'?"

"He is _your_ patient."

"Technically, he wasn't even a patient. He was a 'case study'."

She played her trump card, the 'patient code'. House had felt bound by it to save his patients, no matter how great the personal inconvenience or the costs. "Your team diagnosed him, so that makes him your patient." Maybe not in a legal sense, but she knew how he worked. A patient was his until he passed him on to someone else (or the patient died). He didn't leave patients to fend for themselves.

She could hear him moving around and the gurgle of something being poured into a glass. She hoped it was water. "Well, he is diagnosed, isn't he, and he's an oncologist in his own right. He knows what to do. I don't have to take him by the hand and accompany him to his next appointment."

Good! He hadn't outright refuted the doctor-patient connection.

"He's drinking; he doesn't know what he's doing!"

"Then stop the drinking," Pete said.

"What the hell do you think I've been doing these past four weeks? I've been running interference with his boss to stop him from getting fired – although I guess that doesn't matter anymore – and trying to get him to see Nolan. Nolan says there's nothing he can do unless Wilson comes to him, and Wilson says there's nothing Nolan can do for him. … Oh, I guess Wilson means the thymoma," she said in sudden realisation.

"What meds is he taking?"

The change in topic caught her off guard. "Sorry?" Even if Wilson was on meds, how was she supposed to know what they were?

"Go check!" came the order from Baltimore.

"How am I ….?"

"Woman, that man is anal. If he's taking his meds, then he'll have them well within reach, either in your bathroom or in the guest room."

She stuck her head out of the kitchen. Wilson was still in the bathroom, so she scuttled into the guest room. She opened the drawer of the bedside table, but there was nothing there. She considered his suitcase, but he'd stowed it on top of the closet; she'd need to get a chair to reach it. Next she opened the closet. He'd put a few clothes there and hung up two shirts – enough to get him through the weekend. On one of the shelves he'd placed a bag with a few toiletry articles. And in it was a pill bottle, orange like the ones she'd so often seen House handle. She took it and hurried back to the kitchen, where she closed the door.

"Got it," she said into the phone. "Zoloft."

"Dosage, date of refill, number of pills left?" Pete queried routinely.

Cuddy squinted at the label. "100 mg, about twenty of the fifty pills left, refilled on – oh!"

"Lemme guess: Jimmy hasn't been taking his meds?"

Cuddy did a quick calculation. "Not since he returned from England," she said.

Little explosive pops came from the phone. Cuddy had no idea what they were, but chances were that they were caused by Pete's thinking process.

"Let's say he forgot his meds because he was drunk. He had withdrawal symptoms, didn't recognise them as such (because he was drunk), and self-medicated with more alcohol. Or he decided to do the responsible thing and not mix SSRIs with alcohol," Pete mused aloud.

Cuddy snorted.

Pete clicked his tongue. "Or maybe the combination of alcohol and Zoloft makes him feel funny in a not-so-good way, so he tells himself every day, ' _Tomorrow_ I'll stop drinking and then I'll take my meds again,' but tomorrow never comes."

"Thing is," Pete continued, "when you stop taking your SSRIs against the doctor's advice, it doesn't improve your outlook on life. Makes everything seem bleak and hopeless, especially cancer treatment. Gotta get him back on the meds."

"So it boils down to his quitting the booze," Cuddy said with a sinking feeling. She couldn't help remembering how long his previous stay in Mayfield had been. How long would it take for Wilson to feel well enough to take his fate into his own hands again?

Pete practically echoed her thoughts. "If he's got the time for that. I need his scans, recent scans," he demanded.

"I'm sure he has a set in his suitcase," Cuddy said sarcastically.

"They'll be in his medical records, and those are bound to be stored in digital format on some hospital server or other, depending on where he got them done."

"Well, I haven't got access to those either."

"Has he brought a laptop?"

"Yes, but … Pete, I can't even hack into Rachel's account when she forgets her password, much less into Wilson's. Wilson may not be a computer nerd, but in the years with you he learned to protect all his accounts."

There was silence at the other end. Doubtless Pete's former team would have done a better job than she could do. Foreman or Thirteen, hardened by years of getting 'detailed patient histories', as they had called their snooping and spying, would have made short shrift of Wilson's security measures.

"Okay, I'm coming the day after tomorrow." With that the line went dead.


	8. Unwanted Growths

The scans were clear high-definition ones, done by expert technicians with state-of-the-art equipment. The biopsy results were unequivocal. The entire file was worth both the money he'd laid out for it and the hassle of dealing with Lisa's pain-in-the-ass PI.

"You've got stage II thymoma," Pete said to Wilson by way of greeting, dropping the file on the coffee table and lowering himself onto the couch beside Wilson.

Wilson looked up from his book. "You've got a problem with the concept of privacy."

"You've consulted with three specialists and they all suggested resection followed by radiation."

"You're confusing cancer with early-onset Alzheimer's. I'm quite capable of recalling what the specialists with whom I consulted told me. You don't need to repeat it."

"You don't seem to be capable of acting on their advice. Why aren't you doing something about your thymoma?"

" _My_ thymoma, _my_ choice. That's a concept that you, of all people, should be able to comprehend."

"Your 'choice'," Pete said with heavy emphasis, "is misinformed and stupid. And by 'stupid' I mean suicidal."

Wilson tossed his book onto the coffee table. Pete noted with detached surprise that it was a biker's guide – not the kind of book you'd expect Lisa to own or Wilson to read.

"I happen to be an oncologist in my own right," Wilson said, "and I know _exactly_ what I'm doing. That may 'only' be a stage II thymoma, but it's a type B3 …"

Pete widened his eyes, waving his hands hysterically. "Oooooh, Type B3! Now I'm _really_ scared!" That wasn't too far away from the truth: B3 was bad news. It meant that Wilson needed to swing into action fast if he wanted to get it under control.

For a moment Wilson looked annoyed, but then he shrugged. "Deal with it your way and I'll deal with it in mine."

"How is doing nothing 'dealing with it'?" Pete yelled.

"I _am_ doing something," Wilson said. He picked up his book and opened it again, pointedly ignoring Pete.

Pete squinted at the title. " _Great American Motorcycle Tours_. Is this the 586th of the 1001 Must-Reads Before You Die? Wow, I'm impressed: you're going to spend the last months of your life on Lisa's couch, reading."

Wilson looked smug. "No, I'm going to spend the last months of my life riding a motorbike instead of lying in a sterile neon-lit hospital puking my guts out while bored, bleary-eyed nurses change my sheets and empty my bedpan. I've sent in my resignation and I'm taking unpaid leave until I'm officially released from my contract, so there's nothing to stop me from leaving." He turned a page and pretended to be immersed in a description of the route from Gettysburg to Fredericksburg.

Nonplussed, Pete scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail. "You … can ride a bike?"

Wilson didn't look up. "It can't be too difficult – you did it with a gimp leg."

"Nice," Pete drawled.

Wilson relented somewhat. "I've had a few lessons," he admitted. "Besides, it wouldn't matter much if I ended up wrapped around a telegraph pole."

"So that's your great plan: committing suicide under the pretext of working your way through a bucket list."

"No, that's what _your_ plan would be if you were in my place. My plan is simply to spend my last months with as much dignity as possible."

"There _is_ no dignity in death!"

"I knew you'd say that," Wilson said with his 'I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself' expression. "But you're wrong."

He continued in a low voice, "I've seen this often enough: patients going through round after round of chemo, first the light fire, then the heavy artillery, and finally the palliative stuff. By the time they accepted that they were going to die, it was too late to live anymore. And God help me, I was the idiot who advised them to go that way. All their energy went into fighting the cancer instead of going along with it. _I'm_ going to have fun for as long as I can."

"And then?"

"And then the plan for palliative care that I've drawn up takes effect. It's at the back of the file."

Pete leafed to the last page. It was a DNR. He slammed the file shut and tapped it thoughtfully.

"Have you thought about Lisa and the squirt? They're kinda dependent on you."

Wilson dog-eared his page and closed the book. "Nice try, but as you know quite well, they'll be better off without me. Cuddy doesn't even trust me to babysit Rachel anymore."

"That's because you drink, not because you have cancer. You can quit the booze; you've done it before." Like he'd stopped taking Vicodin. And then started again. And stopped. And started again. And parked a car in Lisa's house.

Wilson didn't seem convinced either. "I think _you_ were the one who said that addicts don't change. I'll always be an addict, even when I'm sober. I'm an additional responsibility for Cuddy, just like Rachel is. Only difference is, I'll never outgrow my neediness."

Neediness could be combatted with more neediness. "What about me?" Pete asked.

"What _about_ you?" Wilson asked right back.

"What if _I_ need you?"

"You don't. You've got a job, …"

"Been fired." Might as well use the humiliating fact to gain leverage.

That stopped Wilson short, but only for a moment. He continued staunchly, "You'll get a new one. You have friends, …"

"Acquaintances," Pete corrected. He'd be the last to admit it, but he'd taken to friendship with Wilson like a fish to water. It was a benchmark against which his other 'friends' fell short.

"Whatever. From your perspective you've known them for longer than you've known me. You'll do fine with them."

"And that's for _you_ to decide?"

Wilson sat up and twisted to face House. "Actually, it is. It certainly isn't for you to decide that I have to stay alive to suit your personal agenda. I'm not some … piece of real estate that you can dispose of as you please."

Wilson was pissed, that was for sure. The question was why. What clues had he given? 'Real estate' – what did that mean? Pete didn't own any real estate – he'd had an apartment in Princeton, but it had been sold in order to cover the costs of the procedure that had wiped his memory.

Ah, there it was! He'd disposed of their friendship along with his memory and his apartment.

"You're still mad at me for nuking my hippocampus, leaving you here alone," he stated.

Wilson enunciated clearly, as though talking to a child. "No, House, I'm _not_ mad at you for nearly killing yourself. I'm mad at you for nearly killing me!"

This was ridiculous. It reminded Pete of those notes in his Mayfield case file about Wilson's dead girlfriend (amantadine poisoning after her kidneys got trashed in a bus accident). Then, Wilson had also blamed him for something that hadn't been his fault, not according to _logical_ criteria.

Fortunately he'd read the court files dealing with the car crash and knew what had happened. "I didn't 'nearly kill' you. You fell and sprained your wrist."

Wilson jumped up and stared down at Pete. "That's not _quite_ what happened!" he said, his voice tense.

Tons of subtext there, of the kind that Pete disliked immensely. People tended to deliver revelations about his past – those bits that he preferred not to know about – in that tone of voice, tinged with disapproval. "What, I was trying to kill you, not Lisa?" he joked rather lamely.

"You were driving straight at that tree, so I stepped in front of it. But you just kept on coming. You didn't slow down one bit!"

Okay, that was a legitimate grudge, nearly being turned into roadkill, but it didn't mean that he'd tried to _kill_ Wilson. From what he'd heard about that time, Wilson had been supportive (even if his efforts had been unappreciated and his advice largely spurned), so it was unlikely that he'd been the target.

"I imagine I was hoping you'd jump out of the way if I didn't swerve. And you did, so I was right. Furthermore, I _did_ swerve – into Lisa's house," he added rather bitterly. "So what's your point?"

"My point," Wilson said, pointing an unsteady finger at Pete, "is that if I'd jumped in the other direction, the one you swerved into, you'd have run me over and I'd be dead now."

"But you didn't. You're going to let the cancer to kill you because you believe your escape four years ago was somehow fortuitous, cheating the gods?" Pete had the disconcerting feeling that he'd lost the plot.

"No, House, I'm going to let the cancer kill me because I won't subject myself to months of futile suffering for the sake of someone who pointed his car straight at me with no concern for the consequences. If you'd tried to kill me, then maybe I could have forgiven you, because murderous intentions indicate some level of emotion. But it wasn't that; you simply didn't _care_ whether you killed me or not. You didn't care about what was happening to me at that moment."

"I swerved to avoid you," Pete said desperately. "You said so yourself."

"I don't know whether you swerved to avoid me or whether you got cold feet at the last moment and were avoiding a collision with the tree. But if you'd been concerned for my safety, you would have braked or changed course much earlier. You didn't. You didn't care about me. Why should I care what _your_ future looks like?"

Five years later, and Wilson had to bring it up now of all times? Couldn't he have fought this out earlier, when his health wasn't a consideration? "Isn't it a bit late to take a stand on this?"

Wilson rubbed his hand wearily over his face. "It has always been too late to take a stand, but it's never too late to make decisions for my own good instead of yours. You're on your own, House."

Wilson's cell phone rang. He took it out of his pocket, squinted at the display and frowned, but took the call nonetheless, turning slightly away from Pete as though that gave him more privacy. It didn't: if anything, it made Pete all the more eager to listen in.

"Hello, Amy," Wilson said.

A woman. A love interest? Probably not – Wilson's tone was calm and soothing, without the upward lilt that indicated an adrenaline surge. Were he still an active physician, then Amy could be a patient. She could, of course, be a neighbour who'd asked for his medical opinion.

"Yes. …. Yes." Wilson listened, his brow furrowed in concentration. "Well – that's _good_ news, isn't it?" he finally said, his voice exuding cheer, his face slightly puzzled.

A neighbour who'd found out she didn't have cancer and was cut up about it? Sure, why not? Full-blown Munchhausen's was fairly rare, but there were gradations – people who didn't actively make themselves sick, but who craved the attention that being sick brought them.

"Yes, I know, it can be a bit of a downer. … Yes, I'm sorry, Amy, but maybe it's better this way." Wilson didn't look utterly convinced himself as he mouthed the last platitude. "But you're still young, and this really isn't the best way …. No, no! I'm not saying you were trying to …"

He looked hunted now, and he'd given up all pretence at privacy, pacing the living room as though it was a cage. "I just think it might be better if you found someone … Amy, you're a lovely young person; you're _sure_ to find someone …"

Amy, no matter how lovely, was clearly not in the habit of letting her conversation partners finish their sentences. Wilson seemed to have given up. He listened for a few minutes without commenting at all, other than a few _yesses_ and _hums_ to indicate that he was still listening. Then, finally, he said, "Yes, Amy. I'm very sorry. And thanks for letting me know. … No, I don't know. Maybe next week. … Have a good week. … Bye."

He flicked his phone shut and sank back onto the couch next to Pete, giving him a sideways glance.

"Someone not happy not to have cancer?" Pete asked casually.

Wilson harrumphed. "You could put it that way, if you equate cancer with unwanted growths in the body!" He leaned forward, picked up the remote control and switched on the television, flicking through the channels at a rate that precluded his actually seeing what was on the screen.

Pete did the differential on a growth in a woman that was not cancer, but nevertheless unwanted. "She was pregnant," he said, "and now she isn't."

Wilson found something stupid to watch – a documentary on the effects of globalisation on African rural life. "Wrong. She wasn't even pregnant." He swung his feet on the coffee table and stared at the screen in concentration.

This was a game two could play at. Pete swung his feet up too, crossing his ankles and leaning back comfortably.

_The Nile Perch, a voracious predator, extinguished almost the entire stock of native fish species in Lake Victoria. Its white fillets are exported all around the world, but the local population profits little._

Wilson's pensive expression, although suited to this depressing piece of information, was hardly caused by the plight of the indigenous population on the shores of Lake Victoria. After a few aerial shots of fish processing plants accompanied by dirge-like music, he finally broke.

"After I got back from England, I … There's this lab technician at work, Amy. She was having a rough time, like me … We ended up in bed, and I didn't take proper precautions." Wilson shrugged at the television. "It was stupid. Anyway, when I realised, I asked her to contact me if, you know, anything came of it."

"You mean, if you'd put a bun in her oven," Pete supplied helpfully.

Wilson raised his eyebrows. "If you want to put it that way." He tipped his head to watch a fish being gutted. The camera panned along the processing line in a factory, and then cut to a pile of waste festering in the sun. "I don't think I want to eat fish again."

"Not wanting to have sex again would be a healthier reaction."

"My _health_ is unlikely to be affected either way," Wilson pointed out. "It's not like I'd be around to raise a kid."

Pete tipped his head to acknowledge the point. "But Amy wouldn't have minded a positive outcome," he said.

Wilson rubbed his forehead. "Apparently not. She seems to think that once you've reached twenty-five, it's all downhill and your life is as good as over. Of course, I didn't tell her that I have cancer and won't be much of a father figure, but I doubt that it would make any difference."

"It explains why she didn't use contraception. It doesn't explain why _you_ didn't."

"I was upset. I wasn't thinking straight. … Okay, I was drunk!"

Pete said bitingly, "That was obvious from what you told me before: very young colleague making doe eyes at you with _I want you to be my baby daddy!_ printed across her forehead."

"It wasn't printed … She talked about her parents, her dad's death, her recent break-up. She never mentioned kids – at least, I don't think she did," Wilson said weakly.

"Or you have selective hearing." Pete scrunched up his mouth and frowned.

"You're saying I want a kid when I won't even be around to see it grow up?"

"How often have you 'forgotten' to use a condom, even when you were drunk?"

Wilson was silent.

Pete wagged a finger to rub in the point he'd scored. "We're hardwired to pass on our genes. Knowing that you could be dying, your subconscious decided to make a last-ditch attempt to ensure that James Evan Wilson's DNA will be preserved for posterity."

Wilson looked at him with a mixture of disgust and amusement. "That's the most selfish reason for having kids that I've ever heard – leaving my genes behind for others to deal with."

"There are no unselfish reasons for having kids," Pete mused. "It's always about yourself. Kids don't ask to be catapulted into this existence; all those millions of eggs and sperm that never partner up are probably a lot better off than their paired-off counterparts."

The documentary cut to a pile of perch roe being prepared in a French gourmet restaurant.

"You're grossing me out," Wilson remarked.

"Who, me? I just justified your little outing into sperm donation as an act of self-preservation rather than the manifestation of total stupidity that it was. … Sperm donation," he said thoughtfully. He swung his feet off the coffee table and got up. Something was festering at the back of his brain, and he couldn't access it with the television blaring in the background and Wilson being a total dumb-ass about babies.

… Babies …. Sperm … Gestation period. God, was there no tennis ball in this whole place? Probably not – it wasn't as though Rachel would ever play.

It was a blastocyst of an idea. He had everything he needed, although he couldn't recognise as yet what it was growing into. And he wasn't sure whether he had sufficient time to wait for this embryo to develop.

"When are you leaving?" he asked Wilson.

"As soon as I've finalised my travel itinerary and gotten myself equipped for the road."

"Have you got a bike?"

Wilson hesitated. "Not yet."

Pete smiled, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "You'll need advice, _expert_ advice. I know a place."


	9. Shopping for Trouble

House did indeed know a place for motorcycles just outside Princeton.

"You –- remember this place?" Wilson asked as they drew up outside it. He remembered it; they'd been there together some seven years earlier to replace a motorcycle that House had trashed.

House's mien as he examined the shop front was hesitant, his brows drawn together in concentration, his lips scrunched up. "Maybe … vaguely. I  _think_  I've been here before …"

Wilson felt a tremor of hope run up his spine. "Really?" he said.

House looked at him, his lips quirking. "No." He reached into his backpack, drew out a motoring magazine and tossed it into Wilson's lap. It was folded open on a page with ads, one of which was circled.

" _NJ Motorcycles, Princeton_ ," Wilson read. "Ass!"

"Retrograde amnesia that lasts longer than half a year doesn't 'wear off' just like that," House pointed out.

"True, but there are new findings that DBS can produce vivid memories, so it may be possible to combat your amnesia."

House looked at him curiously. "Would you invite bedbugs back in after you've had your place fumigated and replaced all your furniture?"

Wilson was hard put to pinpoint the flaw in the metaphor. "I am who I am because of the events that shaped me and the memories that they left. I don't simply  _like_ macadamia nut pancakes. I can recall my grandmother making them, my mother making them, even  _me_  making them on occasion,"  _and you eating them,_  he added silently. "It's the taste  _plus_  all those memories that combine to form my present day experience of enjoying macadamia nut pancakes."

"I was a jerk before the electroconvulsive therapy; I'm a jerk now. Not remembering how I used to piss people off doesn't stop me from enjoying it now. I'm fine without my memories."

"How can you know?"

House shrugged and went inside. Wilson sighed, locked the car, and followed him. Seeing to which part of the display House was drifting Wilson said, "I'm looking for something for the next few months, not for a long-term investment for my money."

As though on cue, a salesman came up. "This model, sir, has 1000 cc, a 5.2 gallon fuel tank, and traction control. It also has cruise control and …"

"We need a beginner's motorcycle," House said without looking up from the model he was circling.

"New or used?"

"Used."

"Ah, then you might like to look over here, sir," the salesman said, moving over to cruisers that looked as though they came straight from the movie set of  _Wild Hogs_.

Wilson longed to point out that there was a difference between midlife crisis and end-of-life closure, but House and the salesman were off on suspension, displacement, torque and heaven knew what, so he wandered off to look at leather jackets and helmets instead.

Black. Black would be appropriate. He'd look suitably rakish in black leather. And an open helmet: he wanted to feel the wind in his face. He'd get sunglasses to go with it and cultivate a manly stubble. And he'd visit that girl Melanie, the one he'd had a crush on in high school, and make her regret she'd gone to the prom with Kyle Calloway, that selfish bastard!

He'd chosen a jacket, pants and boots when House whistled at him.

"Wilson, you're testing those three." He pointed to three motorcycles that the salesman had pushed to the entrance of the shop, all of them cruisers.

Wilson swung himself onto the first one. House eyed him critically, checking not just his control of the vehicle, but also his posture. At House's gesture he moved on to the next one. When House was satisfied, he nodded to the salesman.

"He'll take the Honda Rebel. Now let's have the other one!"

The salesman wheeled out another motorcycle while House, who had come dressed in leather, grabbed the helmet Wilson had chosen and put it on.

"Why can't I try that one?" Wilson asked, pointing to House's motorcycle. It was what he'd envisioned when he'd pictured himself riding into the sunset: a sleek racy outline, front and rear fairings, a rake angle that had you crouching over the handlebars ready to lean into corners as you wound up mountain serpentines. The one House had picked for him from the selection the salesman had wheeled out looked tame in comparison.

"You ride this one, and your trip ends at the first corner you meet," House said. Relenting a little, he added, "If you want to ride with that tumour pressing on your lungs, you're going to need a fairly upright position. And you should be able to plant your feet solidly on the ground – you'll need the extra control when you have to stop suddenly because of a coughing bout."

When House put it like that, a motorcycle trip into the sunset didn't seem such a great idea after all.

House swung his prosthetic awkwardly over the saddle of the sports motorcycle.

"Are you sure …?" the salesman began.

In answer, House gunned the motor and spurted across the parking lot, the exhaust thrumming loudly. For all of ten wearying minutes he accelerated and braked, weaved in and out of parked cars, rode ever-tightening loops, until he finally came to a stop in front of Wilson and the sales guy.

"Can we go now, Evil Knievel?" Wilson asked. "I've got a motorcycle and you don't need one."

"You want me to ride pillion on yours?" House asked, leering. "Snuggling up to you from behind? Sweet! But on a 250 cc bike that's going to get uncomfortable pretty soon."

"You're –- coming with?"

"Sure," House said easily. "Can't miss this, can I? Wilson letting his hair down, going all Easy Rider on the unsuspecting populace of the Midwest!"

"Who says I want you to come?" Wilson said slowly.

House tipped his head to one side to consider Wilson the way he looked at interesting scans, shifting his weight to his remaining foot as he did so, causing the crotch rocket under him to list to the same side. "You let me come  _here_  with you," he pointed out.

"Only because you know more about motorcycles than I do."

"You could have researched them yourself on the internet; in fact, you probably did. See, you  _want_  me to go along because you're scared to go by yourself." Before Wilson could protest that he was no chicken, House added suggestively, "Besides, if you're nice to me, I'll let you ride my – bike."

Wilson threw up his hands, but he couldn't help smiling. "With such an incentive, who could refuse you?" he said.

"We're taking the motorcycles for a test ride," House told the salesman. "Take his credit card as security and get us another helmet."

Out on the roads? Wilson had imagined that he'd start off by turning rounds on an empty parking lot or chugging slowly down the streets of Germantown, taking things at his own pace with no one to witness his little wobbles of insecurity. Going on a ride with House would undoubtedly involve testing his limits and possibly exceeding them. But House was already on his bike revving impatiently, the salesman was giving him an encouraging wave, and there was no way he could back down without losing face completely, not after he'd told House that he was going on a road trip in order to have the time of his life. So he swung his leg over the saddle with a confidence that he didn't feel, plastered a smile onto his face and started the ignition. (Where on earth was the fuel gauge on this darn thing?)

"Stay behind me and do as I do!" House instructed before heading towards the exit of the parking lot.

_Sure!_  he thought, kicking into first gear, easing the clutch and twisting the grip of the throttle towards himself. The motorcycle lurched forward. He pulled hard on the clutch, mindful of his driving instructor's words: 'When in doubt, engage the clutch!' It was a good thing he'd taken a few lessons the past weeks, even though they weren't nearly enough to make him feel confident about controlling the roughly five hundred pounds bucking under his ass and just waiting to toss him into the next irrigation ditch.

The engine whined, but being disconnected, had no more effect on the motorcycle than Wilson's agitated thoughts. After a few harrowing seconds he had the it under control and was puttering slowly across the parking lot towards House. He applied a little more throttle and was relieved when the cruiser picked up speed, reaching a respectable pace by the time he caught up with House.

"You  _do_  know how to switch gears, right?" House asked.

Wilson nodded, mortified.

House grinned diabolically. "Follow me!"

After half an hour, Wilson was just about ready to abandon the motorcycle and walk back to the car. It wasn't that House was taking particular pains to torture him. No, it was small-town traffic pure and simple: four way stops, traffic lights, left turns, right turns. The first right turn had him weaving into the opposite lane, which was luckily completely empty.

House stopped. "You know what would have happened if a car had come from the other direction?"

Yes, he knew. He didn't need to be reminded.

After a further fifteen minutes, House let him pull up and waved at him to drive ahead.

"How do I know where I'm supposed to go?" he asked, slightly panicky. If he messed this up, he'd land on the freeway among trucks and SUVs and commuters, all out to get him.

"Well,  _I_  have no idea where we are, so if you don't either, we'll ride in circles till we run out of gas," House said shrugging.

Great! They were out in the open countryside by now, and he hadn't really paid any attention to their route, so busy had he been trying not to stall the motorcycle or lose sight of House. But he had a rough idea where they'd come from, so he turned around and tentatively accelerated to what he considered an adequate cruising speed.

Wilson had just come to the conclusion that motorcycles were fun after all when disaster struck. Everything had gone well on their way back to Princeton and they were approaching the last traffic light before the motorcycle shop when it switched from green to yellow. Wilson braked: he wasn't about to risk a left turn under the pressure of getting off the intersection before he was turned into roadkill by oncoming traffic. He felt rather than saw House overtake him and head out onto the intersection. House leaned into the turn, but he was too close to the curb,  _far_  too close, and the rest happened so fast that Wilson only heard a scrunch as the sports motorcycle slid into a parked car.

He accelerated, drove through the red light, and turned left the way House had done, hoping that any oncoming traffic would brake. A horn blared. By the time he reached House he was going so fast that he couldn't stop next to him anymore. His bike came to a halt a few yards further on; he kicked the stand down, dismounted, and ran back to where House was slowly picking himself up.

"Are you okay?" he asked breathlessly.

House flexed one leg and then the other, dusted down his leather jacket and his pants, which were quite badly scuffed on the side that had hit the ground, and grimaced.

"Seems okay," he said, though his voice was not quite as cocky as usual. Wilson walked over to House's motorcycle and picked it up. At first glance he couldn't see any damage to it. He pushed it up the curb out of the way and turned his attention to the car, a sleek silver Mercedes sedan.

_Oh, crap!_  A large dent graced the driver's door and the left back tire was flat. Totally flat. Undrive-ably flat. How had that happened with no visible damage to the machine?

"The tire is flat," he said to House. "Are you sure you're okay?"

House, who had sunk down on the curb, nodded.

"What about the prosthetic?" Wilson probed. Maybe something had come off and …

House examined that leg. The leather of his pants was somewhat scuffed, but the prosthetic itself seemed intact. "Must've been the foot rest," he said.

Wilson looked around. No owner was rushing out of an adjoining building to lynch them. In fact, no one was taking any notice of them at all. He walked into the cafe that adjoined the sidewalk.

"The car out there, the Mercedes, do you know to whom it belongs?" he asked the woman behind the counter.

She came out with him. "That's Phil's car," she said. "He's got his office on the second floor. Wait, I'll call him."

She walked to the edge of the sidewalk and leaned backwards. "Phil!" she hollered. A head popped out of a window on the second floor. "Come down! Someone's done somethin' to your car!"

After what seemed an infinite wait, an elderly gentleman in a suit and tie shuffled out onto the sidewalk. "What's with my car?" he asked with a look of mild enquiry.

"My friend, uh, crashed his motorcycle into it," Wilson said.

"Oh, dear!" Phil said. He looked at House, who was now cradling his head in his hands. "Is he okay? Should we call a doctor?"

"He's okay, and I am a doctor," Wilson said.

"Oh, dear!" Phil repeated. "Motorcycles are  _so_  dangerous! My daughter is taking driving lessons, but I'd never let her get on a motorcycle." He looked at Wilson as though it was his fault that House was riding a motorcycle.

Wilson shoved the thought that if Amy had been pregnant he'd be about Phil's age when his kid got a driver's licence firmly out of his mind and concentrated on the matter at hand. "Your car," he reminded Phil.

"A few scratches don't matter as long as it still works," Phil said cheerfully. Then to House, "You shouldn't give up, though. After a crash, it's best to get right back on the motorcycle and keep going. Chicken out, and you'll regret it later."

When House raised his head and made as though to say something, Wilson quickly intervened. "I'm afraid the back tire is flat. No, the other one," he said, as Phil examined the intact tire on the right side of the car.

Phil went round to the other side. "Oh, sh–sh–sh." He drew out the sibilant, as though pondering what combination of vowels and consonants to add to it, and then settled for, "Shame! What a shame! But we should be happy that no one got hurt. Are you a beginner?" he asked House.

House didn't deign to reply. Wilson couldn't suppress a grin –- House classified as a beginner! This would provide mocking fodder for days.

"No, but he's starting again after a long time out," he said.

"Oh, dear! Well, I've read that most motorcycle accidents are caused by older men riding on machines that are too powerful for their abilities," Phil said.

House snorted.

Phil gave him a mild smile. "But however that may be, it makes no difference now." He contemplated the flat tire. "I suppose I can't drive the car like this?"

"No, definitely not," both Wilson and the woman from the cafe said.

"But I'm sure my insurance will cover the costs for the repair and the paint job," Wilson added.

"Well, yes, but I have a court hearing in Trenton in half an hour. How am I going to get there?"

"If you've got a spare in your trunk, I'm sure I could change it," Wilson said. He hadn't changed a tire in years, but how difficult could it be? He beckoned to House, who rose reluctantly from the curb.

But there was no spare tire in the trunk. "No idea where it went," Phil said with a fatalistic shrug.

"We could call a taxi," Wilson suggested.

Phil broke into a smile. "Now that would be lovely! In fact, I could do that myself. You boys have been through enough already."

But Wilson called a cab, and while they waited, he wrote his contact data and his insurance number down for Phil. "Let me know if there's a problem," he said.

"But hurry!" House muttered. "In a few months it'll be too late!"

Wilson gave House a dirty look. Turning back to Phil he said, "You've been very calm about all this. Not everyone would appreciate having their paint job ruined and their tire punctured."

"Young man," Phil said as the cab pulled up at the curb, "I'm a lawyer: criminal law. I deal with murder, mayhem, rape, and armed assault on a daily basis. Compared with that, a dented car is a breeze." He gave them both a friendly wave as the cab drove away.

"You heard him," Wilson said to House. "Straight back onto the motorcycle and off we go. No chickening out!"

House flipped him the bird.

The guy at NJ Motorcycles was less than happy when they came back at a very sedate pace (Wilson rather enjoyed biking with House when he was in a state of shocked stupor) and he saw the scratches on the fairings of the Kawasaki House had been riding.

"Are you buying it?" he asked.

"No," Wilson said before House could say anything. "We'll pay for the damage, but he's getting a cruiser, like me, with a displacement of 500 cc at the most."

There was a loaded silence while Wilson and the sales guy waited for House's reaction.

"And  _he_  is paying for everything," House finally said, pointing his thumb at Wilson.

They made the remaining arrangements with the salesman: House haggled the price down by twenty per cent while Wilson selected saddle bags and arranged for the cruisers to be brought to Philly during the course of the week. He supposed he should be grateful for the turn of events – if House hadn't kissed the tarmac, he'd probably have insisted that they ride their motorcycles back to Philadelphia immediately.

* * *

Cuddy, spotting the two men slinking past the kitchen toting four large shopping bags, strode out to intercept them before they could reach the safety of the guest bedroom.

"What have you got there?"

Pete looked brazen enough to bluff it out, but Wilson flushed guiltily.

When she waved her hand at the bags with a twirl in an 'open up!' gesture Pete said, "Private stuff, not for ladies' eyes!" and winked at her broadly.

She turned to Wilson with her hands on her hips and predictably he folded. "It's motorcycle gear," he mumbled.

It took her a few moments to process the information. "Motorcycle gear? Have you gone crazy?"

"Why did you tell her?" Pete said. "Now she's gonna get her thong all in a twist!"

"You don't think she'll notice when we're both gone all of a sudden?" Wilson asked. Crossing his arms defensively he said to Cuddy, "I want to see a few places before I die."

"Can't you go by car?" He didn't answer. "Do you even have a motorcycle licence?"

"Pete knows someone who …"

" _Pete knows someone who knows someone,_ " she mimicked. "Great! So your plan for avoiding cancer treatment in a hospital is getting admitted as roadkill instead."

"Why does everyone think  _I'll_  crash the motorcycle?" Wilson asked plaintively.

Cuddy turned to Pete and poked a finger into his chest. "I'll hold  _you_  responsible for his safety."

"Hey, it wasn't my idea!" Pete protested, taking half a step backwards and throwing up his hands.

"I'm aware of that. Something that stupid could only have come from the Mastermind of Idiotic Plans!" Cuddy said, tossing her head angrily at Wilson.

"'Mastermind of …'?" Wilson repeated. "I'm insulted. My plans are never idiotic." Unlike Pete, whose Puppy-dog Look of Innocence was marred by being obviously fake, Wilson's looked like the genuine thing, maybe because he believed in his own innocence.

"I can name at least twenty instances of totally crappy schemes," Cuddy said, a challenging gleam in her eyes.

Wilson unfolded his arms to waggle his fingers at her. "Fine, bring it on! I'm counting."

Pete leaned against the wall, grinning. "This is gonna be good!" he said.

"It sure is," Cuddy confirmed. "Twenty: The Chicken Bet."

"You … knew about that?" Wilson asked.

"Of  _course_ I knew about that. It was my job to know about things like that."

"That one wasn't too bad; it got House off your back."

"Do you have any idea what it cost me to have the entire tract disinfected without the story leaking to the board?" Obviously not. "Nineteen: Double dating with Sam."

Wilson didn't contest that one.

She was on a roll now. "Eighteen: The time we didn't tell him," she nodded at House, "that his patient was cured?" Wilson didn't contest that one either.

"Seventeen: Dragging me to his wedding in the hope that he'd chicken out at the last minute when he saw me there."

"I couldn't know that he'd be stubborn enough to go through with it," Wilson defended himself.

"I  _told_  you that he's a stupid, pig-headed adolescent with a bad attitude."

"Hey, I have feelings!" Pete interposed.

"Why am  _I_  getting blamed for  _his_  attitude?" Wilson complained.

"I'm not blaming you for his attitude; I'm blaming you for not taking it into account. Sixteen: The deal with Tritter."

"Shit, yes," Wilson muttered. "Talk of stupid, pig-headed idiots."

"Absolutely!" Cuddy said, looking at him pointedly. "Fifteen, …"

"Okay, okay," Wilson interrupted. "I get the point. You can stop. Can we go now?"

"You're leaving  _now_?"

"No, we're leaving in about a week," Wilson said. "But I want to stow the gear in the guest room." He picked up three of the bags, leaving one for Pete. You would think Pete was the one with cancer, but ingrained habits were difficult to eradicate.

Cuddy turned to Pete as soon as she was sure that Wilson wouldn't hear them. "Wilson is being an idiot."

"Agreed."

"He needs treatment."

"Also agreed."

"Treatment which he won't be getting if you whisk him off to the ass end of nowhere, where you'll have so much fun together that he'll forget all about his imminent death." She leaned back, arms folded, her point made.

Pete imitated her posture. "Treatment which he won't be getting if I let him go off by himself to the ass end of nowhere to mope and come to the conclusion that life really isn't worth living."

She considered this. Pete had a point. Besides, Wilson was undoubtedly safer in Pete's company. "But don't you think he may have been testing the waters? If you hadn't agreed to go along, he might have given up his plan."

Pete blew air from one cheek to the other. "Wilson kept very few of my clothes when he put my stuff in storage, but he kept my motorcycle gear, along with the baby grand and the couch."

"So?" She wished he'd get to the point.

"So, for Wilson, motorcycling is a part of me the way playing the piano is." He tugged at his lip in thought. "You're playing tennis with your boss and he lobs a ball high over the net. What does he expect you to do?"

Now he was dangling one of his darn sports metaphors in her face, and if she wanted to figure out what was going on, she'd have to bite. "Smash it back?"

"Exactly! If you don't do that, he'll know you're not interested in winning the game, but in brown-nosing him. Wilson isn't testing the waters, he's testing me. He lobbed a high ball at me. If I'd lobbed it back, he'd have known I'm not interested in winning the game."

He was making her head ache. "And what's the game?"

"Keeping Wilson alive."

* * *

It took Wilson three weeks to get his life sorted; Pete, on the other hand, needed only one phone call. When Cuddy pulled him aside and asked him what he was going to live off now that he had no job, he raised an eyebrow and said, "Duh, Wilson of course! He's got quite a stash, and a deadline on spending it. Hah, see what I did there?"

Cuddy was not amused, but let it pass. "And then?"

"I'm still a lecturer at Oxford University." He must have sensed her doubts, because he added, "They're ridiculously generous and they don't seem to care much when I hold the lectures or how, for that matter. I have a nasty suspicion that they're more interested in the fickle fame attached to my name than in my unsurpassed teaching abilities." He managed to look deeply wounded at the superficiality of the organisation that was paying him a substantial salary for doing nothing.

"I wonder why," Cuddy muttered.

She had to admit that both men looked annoyingly hot in their motorcycle gear. Wilson had stopped shaving regularly since the day they'd gone on their purveying excursion. In his black leather jacket, a stylish pair of sunglasses perched on his nose, he looked dangerously rakish. Where had steady, solid, comforting Wilson gone? Pete, for his part, looked much as usual and coolly amused at Wilson's transformation.

Still, it wouldn't do for them to sense the pang in her heart as she surveyed them, possibly seeing Wilson for the last time with a genuine smile on his face. So she said as bossily as she could, "You will call me every day!"

"We're throwing our cells into the first river we cross," Pete said.

"We'll call you once a week," Wilson offered as a compromise.

Cuddy narrowed her eyes at him. "Every second day."

"Twice a week," Wilson offered.

"Done."

She never got to find out whether Wilson would have kept his promise in the long run, because their motorcycles roared down her peaceful street again a bare ten days later. She purposely ignored the sound, deciding that wishful thinking wasn't going to bring her two guys back any sooner, but when her door opened (Wilson had a spare key) and their bickering filled her hall, she scampered out in a most undignified manner to meet them, clasping Wilson in a warm hug while she looked questioningly, anxiously, at Pete. She'd known that Wilson couldn't last forever, not on a road trip, but she'd expected him to be good for two months at the very least. Wilson  _looked_  no different from when he'd left ten days earlier, so why were they back?

"Amy phoned," Pete said cryptically.

"Who's Amy?" Cuddy asked.

"She's someone I know from work," Wilson said.

"And he doesn't mean in the literal sense. He got to know her in the biblical sense," Pete added.

While Wilson looked embarrassed, Pete was darkly jubilant. "Like Caesar, Wilson saw, conquered, and came – in Amy. So now there's a little Wilson in Amy." He scratched his chin. "You might, at a stretch, say that Wilson is colonising her like the Romans colonised Britain."

Placed strategically between Cuddy and Wilson, he smirked at Wilson and then, twisting on his heel to face Cuddy, gave her a warning glare.

Getting it, she smiled warmly at Wilson as though this – his becoming father – was a  _good_  thing. "Congratulations, Wilson. How lovely!"

"I'm not really sure," Wilson said, flapping his hands.

"Of course it is! Rachel will  _love_  having a cousin."

Pete, unseen by Wilson, gave her a small nod of approval.

Wilson looked gobsmacked. "We haven't talked yet about what we'll do. I don't even know whether she wants to keep it."

Pete rolled his eyes at that. Cuddy wondered what he knew about Amy that he was so sure she'd want to keep it.

"Then I suggest you discuss it with her," she said to Wilson. "Does she know you have cancer?"

"No," Wilson said.

"Yes," Pete said.

Cuddy and Wilson both stared at him.

Pete cleared his throat. "I  _may_  have called her back later and mentioned the matter to her," he said, focusing on a spot above the mantelpiece.

Wilson looked as though he was about to have an apoplexy. "House, do you always have to interfere?"

Cuddy had no idea what Pete was up to, but he probably knew what he was doing. "Consider it a good thing," she advised Wilson. "This gives her more time to consider the implication of your condition when making a decision for or against the baby."

"Not to mention what a damper it would be if she was gushing about the parasite and you had to tell her, 'Sorry, I can't help with the dirty diapers because I'll be dead!' " Pete said as he stretched himself along the couch.

"It would be the truth," Wilson said.

"It doesn't have to be," Pete said, his gaze intense. "Maybe  _you_  dig this Circle of Life thing – new life entering this world while the old one fades away – but single motherhood isn't all it's made out to be. Right, Lisa?"

"Goddam right," Cuddy agreed, trying to hide her amusement at Pete showing empathy with single parents. "You need to reconsider what you'll do – how you'll deal with your tumour – in view of the changed circumstances."

"Wait," Wilson said. "Wait! This –- doesn't change anything for me. This affects  _Amy's_  life, not mine. If she chooses to terminate because she can't face single motherhood, then that's …," Wilson stopped to consider what he was about to say, his eyes closed and his hands chopping the air, "… sad, but it's her call."

Pete leaned back, crossing his ankles. "So it's okay for you to put a bun in her oven, but it only has consequences for her, not for you."

Wilson narrowed his eyes at Pete. "It  _will_  have consequences for me. If Amy keeps the child, I'll change my will and leave everything to him or her – instead of you."

"That affects your lawyer and me, not you. Who gets your money after you die won't make any difference to you whatsoever. You're not going to be reclining on a fluffy white cloud, smilingly down benignly on your misbegotten offspring as it squanders its inheritance. You. Won't. Be. There."

"Maybe not, but I'll die easy knowing that my child is taken care of."

When Pete made to open his mouth again, Cuddy interfered. "Pete, shut up!" Even though what he said was logical, the way he said it was guaranteed to put Wilson's back up. This would end with Wilson refusing treatment just to make a point.

Cuddy turned to Wilson. "You got Amy pregnant. You've put her in a position where she has to make a decision with long-term consequences, whether she wants to or not."

"If she terminates, it doesn't have to be long-term," Wilson said weakly, maybe sensing where Cuddy was going.

" _You_  can't know whether terminating won't affect her as much as keeping the child would.  _You_  don't get to decide how she deals with it," Cuddy pointed out ruthlessly. "The least you can do is make whatever route she decides to go down more acceptable. You had all the fun; don't think you can squirm your way out of the consequences of your actions. Leaving her your money after you die? A great-uncle she has never met in her life might do as much. Amy needs you, not your money!"

Pete's little smile told her that she'd just passed 'Manipulation 101'.


	10. Treatment Plan

Wilson the friend was amusing; Wilson the oncologist was competent; Wilson the patient was a massive pain in the ass.

Pete couldn't fault Amy. She did her redoubtable best to draw Wilson into her web of neediness by insisting on keeping the child and making it clear that she wanted Wilson involved, to the point that Lisa, who had accompanied Wilson to New York to meet up with her ('No, Pete, you are _not_ going. You'll say something terribly insensitive that'll make Amy run for the hills. I'll go with him to make sure he doesn't end the day in a bar!'), voiced her fear that Amy's sole aim in getting pregnant was to become Mrs Wilson IV.

"So?" Pete said.

"He's twenty-five years older than she is and he has been married three times already. She must be insane to consider him a desirable candidate for matrimony!"

"Maybe she isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but people who have unprotected sex generally aren't. Again, why should this bother us?"

"It's a recipe for disaster. Should we be encouraging this?" She bit her lower lip, as she always did when something made her moral compass spin wildly on its axis. "They'll be divorced in no time at all."

"If she doesn't reel him in, Wilson will be _dead_ in no time at all. What's one more divorce in the greater scope of things?"

No matter what Amy's intentions were, her act should have sufficed to activate Wilson's innate protective instincts and make him agree to treatment, and it did – sort of. He agreed to get his medical state reassessed –- Lisa promptly bumped him to the top of the radiology waiting list at Philadelphia Central, so his scans were done in a matter of hours –- and to consult a specialist. Oh, and he tried to curb his drinking, for all _that_ was worth. (Basically it meant that Pete wasn't allowed to bring any beer, let alone scotch, to Lisa's place so as not to 'tempt' Wilson, and that he was supposed to stop Wilson from sneaking out to bars when Lisa wasn't around.)

That was, unfortunately, the sum total of the concessions Wilson was prepared to make. _Taking_ the specialist's (or anyone else's) advice was not part of his plan, as became apparent when he got back from the hospital.

"It's not going to be possible to perform a total resection," Wilson said, dumping his file on the coffee table when he returned from his consult with Philadelphia Central's head of oncology (who had been only too happy to fit Wilson into his tight schedule at no notice whatsoever when he heard that Wilson was not only a colleague of some renown, but also the interim dean's close friend). "I'd need several rounds of chemo to make resection a viable option at all, and even then, chances are that they won't get all of it, which means radiation afterwards. Statistically, thymic carcinoma patients don't show long-term benefit from subtotal resection or from adjuvant chemo or radiation. So, I'm better off not getting adjuvant treatment or surgery, because it won't improve my chances of surviving. It would merely keep me cooped up in hospital or at home, recovering from chemo or managing the side effects."

" _Statistically_ thymic carcinoma patients may not benefit from partial resection or adjuvant treatment, but that doesn't mean _you_ won't," Pete said. He scrunched up his face in thought. "What study is that and what was the sample size?"

Wilson didn't answer.

Pete pounced on the loophole. "Too small to be reliable, huh?"

Wilson folded his arms. "If I get treatment, I'll spend the next months praying to the porcelain god, and my immune system will be so compromised that hanging around an infant won't be an option. (That's assuming that I'll be fit enough to travel up to New York to see him.) Net result: months of suffering, separated from the kid I'm doing it all for, and in the end, I'll probably die anyway. No, I'm better off staying away from chemo and all the rest of it, and spending whatever time remains with my kid."

His logic was clearly faulty, but invoking the kid worked like a blinding spell on Lisa, whose resolve to bully Wilson into medical sense promptly crumbled. That had probably been Wilson's intention all along, and he reinforced the effect by adding a few more tear-jerk lines to the effect that he'd had a good life and that he'd die happy if he could only witness his brat's first few months.

"Fat lot of good that's going to do the kid!" Pete muttered when Wilson went off to phone Amy, presumably to get an update on her pregnancy. At Lisa's eye roll he elucidated, "Wilson may feel good about burping a little panty pooper who can't contradict him, but the kid won't remember him once he's dead. He'll leave no fucking trace in Mini-Jim's life other than those thick eyebrows that will get the poor _schmuck_ teased all through school."

Lisa tugged a lock of hair out of her face. "The first months are crucial for a child's later sense of security and its ability to bond," she said.

"From which tabloid did you glean that piece of mumbo-jumbo?" Pete asked, knowing even as he did so that he'd regret challenging her over matters of parenting. Parents and religious nutters had no sense of proportion and very little critical reasoning.

"Rachel has always been, well, _clingy_ , even before her accident. Her mother abandoned her right after she was born, and no one knows for how long she'd been alone before she was found. I think …,"

" _I think, I believe, I am convinced._ Those three verbs preface totally crappy science. Rachel," Pete said, unable to stop himself although disaster now lay at the tip of his tongue, "is clingy because you disappear for hours every day, when she wants you here with her."

"Are you saying I'm neglecting my kid?" Lisa asked, her voice rising.

"No, I'm saying that even kids have agendas."

"But you think she'd be happier if I were here with her when she comes home from school."

"Define 'happy'," Pete prevaricated, hoping to prevent a full-scale explosion.

"Don't evade! You're saying my child is unhappy because I'm not around enough!"

"That's not what I said," Pete defended himself, but Lisa hardly seemed to hear him. He'd badly underestimated her guilt about her long working hours and overestimated her confidence in her parenting abilities. Not his problem, he decided as he pitched himself into the fray. "Okay, she'd be happier if you were here all day. But she'd also be happier if you let her live off soda and candy."

"That's different," Lisa said. "Candy and soda lack nutrients and will rot her teeth. My presence here is not detrimental to her health, so if I make her unhappy by depriving her of it, then my behaviour is selfish."

How the hell had they got from Wilson's suicidal stupidity to Lisa's parenting skills?

"Does that mean I can have a soda?" a voice piped up from the doorway.

* * *

"Now what?" Lisa said, collapsing on the couch next to him after putting Rachel to bed.

"Nothing," he said, not taking his eyes from the TV screen as he stuffed a handful of chips into his mouth. How the hell had the Celtics managed to take the lead?

"You're gonna let him die?" she asked incredulously.

He deigned to turn towards her to look down his nose at her. "I thought you were all for respecting his wishes and letting him die a happy dad, freed from the responsibility of actually caring for the life he created."

"You were right, I was wrong, Wilson's being an idiot. Can we move on?" she said tersely, rolling her hand in illustration.

"We wait," he said, schooling his features into what he hoped was an expression of Zen patience.

"Wait?" she echoed him. "For what?"

"For him to consent to treatment."

"How exactly is scattering chips all over my couch going to make him do that?" she said, looking pointedly at the mess he was making.

He grabbed another large handful and crunched them with half-open mouth, scattering crumbs in a wide radius all around him. Lisa leaned over to pluck the bag from his hand and hold it out of his reach. He sighed.

"He's been on Zoloft again for ten days, and his mood's improving already. Another two or three days, and he'll be as reasonable as he's likely to get."

Her mood perked up immediately. "You got him to take his meds again?"

"Let's just say that I ensured that he takes them," he prevaricated. The enforced proximity of a road trip had one major advantage: they'd shared all meals, which had afforded him ample opportunity to slip Wilson's SSRIs into his over-sweetened morning coffee. If Wilson had been surprised at Pete's willingness to organise and pay for breakfast every morning, he hadn't shown it. The long hours spent out in the sun and the wind had done the rest – Wilson was considerably more upbeat than he'd been a fortnight ago.

Whatever comfort Lisa derived from his information suffered a set-back as the Celtics scored another two points against the Sixers, increasing their lead to a comfortable twelve points. "Three days, give or take, won't change him enough that he'll agree to a course of treatment that he considers hopeless at the moment," she said.

"It'll give me time to come up with an alternative," Pete said, switching channels. That game was going nowhere. "He doesn't want to run the marathon, so we'll have to find a 100-metre sprint he can enter for instead."

When Lisa looked at him blankly he huffed impatiently. "It'll have to be something that hits the tumour hard and fast, so he won't need several rounds of chemo before surgery."

"That's bound to be risky!"

"It can't get riskier than no treatment at all."

* * *

He spent the next few days emailing, phoning and cyber stalking the authors of the study that Wilson had cited, thanking his lucky stars that somewhere in his obscure past he'd learned Japanese, because their English wasn't exactly hot. They were scrupulously polite, they were sorry to hear that their colleague Dr Wilson was not well at all, they would be too happy to help in any way possible, but –- rescinding their findings and stating publicly that they'd made a huge mistake simply wasn't an option.

They could and did point him towards a number of clinical trials and alternative treatment options, and they sent him copies of every treatment regime they knew. He spent hours poring over medical journals, pharmaceutical reports and conference proceedings, open books and notebooks filled with jottings spread out around him. At night he'd sweep everything under the couch; in the morning he'd pull it all out again. It drove Lisa crazy, this encroachment on her living space, even though it had been her idea that he should stay at her place, right at the beginning when he'd come from the conference in Baltimore.

"You just want to lure me into your lair so you can have your wicked way with me when I'm drowsy and my defences are down!" he'd surmised only half jokingly as he'd scanned her face to read the true intention behind her unexpected offer.

She'd dealt up front with his suspicions. "Believe me, you're the last person I want camped in my apartment; your domestic skills leave much to be desired. But _someone_ needs to keep an eye on Wilson when I'm at work, because otherwise he'll drink, and when he's drunk he's completely unreasonable."

The set-up had worked, sort of, before they'd left on their bike trip, probably because the knowledge that it was a temporary arrangement had made it endurable for Lisa. (Pete suspected that she made a notch in her bedpost for every day that she refrained from murdering him.) But now that he was there interminably, his belongings seeped insidiously into every corner of the apartment. Lisa had found his dirty laundry in Rachel's room, his porn DVDs stashed in the bathroom among her sanitary napkins (he'd thought it a fitting place – her underwear drawer, although more apt, had the disadvantage of not being accessible at night), and his beer hidden behind her books on interior design.

"Wilson will never find those cans; there's no way he'll look at wallpaper patterns and furniture," Pete pointed out, but Lisa, her eyebrows meeting her hair line, took the cans and disposed of the beer.

"You're right, he wouldn't pick any of those books for a bit of light reading," she said when he remonstrated loudly and vocally, "but he knows you well enough to figure out where you'd hide booze. There's a fifty percent chance at the very least that he'll find this lot."

His nightly perambulations through the apartment didn't help matters. Wilson and Rachel slept through it all in their respective rooms, Wilson not even waking up when he returned to the guest room in the early hours of the morning to lie down for a few hours on the trundle bed, but Lisa would pop out of her room like a jack-in-the-box whenever he went to the bathroom or into the kitchen (to raid the fridge) or out onto the small balcony off the kitchen for a smoke. It didn't take long till she had rings under her eyes that would have done a racoon proud.

"Do you have to prowl around all night?" she yelled at him when she caught him in the kitchen the third time within one night.

"I'm hungry!" he whined, scooping the last of Rachel's favourite chocolate chip ice-cream into his mouth.

Lisa frowned at the empty tub, but ignored the provocation. Instead she said, "Then take snacks with you into the living room, but: Stay. In. There!"

"How am I supposed to know in the evening what I'll want to eat at," he squinted at the kitchen clock, "three a.m.?" It was boredom rather than hunger that drove him, but she'd hardly appreciate the difference.

"Take a selection. I don't care. I need to sleep!"

"Use ear plugs."

"Then I won't hear Rachel if she needs help."

"For Chrissake, she's eight!" They were both yelling now.

"She's a _cripple_. At night, she's too disoriented to clamber into her wheelchair. If I don't assist her, she falls out of bed or gets stuck in the doorway."

"I can't sleep when you shout like that!" They whirled round to find Rachel glowering at them from the kitchen doorway. "And 'cripple' isn't a nice word to use. _And_ ," she added haughtily, turning her wheelchair to depart, "I can get into my wheelchair by myself whenever I want to!"

He broke the awkward silence by saying, "See? You don't need to play Martyr Mom for her."

Lisa strode out of the kitchen after Rachel, not even dignifying her exit with a parting shot.

* * *

Lisa phoned him the next day at lunchtime. "Wilson has agreed to see Nolan, and Nolan can fit him in this afternoon. Will you take him there?"

"Last I checked, Wilson had a valid licence and a car."

"Sessions with Nolan upset him. I don't want him alone afterwards while he processes."

Had she been corporeally present he'd have treated her to his _brow-furrowed-in-earnest-contemplation_ look before shooting her down. The verbal version would have to suffice. "Hmm, let me see … Bit busy here –- there's a Columbo re-run in half an hour."

There were a few people in Europe whom he still had to contact, and daylight was fading fast there. Phoning them with Wilson sitting in the car next to him so as to discuss treatment options to which Wilson hadn't consented as yet didn't seem like a good plan. Besides, the drinking that Wilson was indulging in at the moment was controlled enough that it wouldn't affect his treatment (once he consented), and as long as that was the case he could drink for all that Pete cared. That was Wilson's life choice, not Pete's problem.

"Fine!" Lisa bit out at the other end. " _I'll_ take him."

If she could make the time, why ask him in the first place? The answer came a moment later.

"Can you drop Rachel off at her friend's birthday party?" Aware of his reluctance she added, "You don't have to stay there or pick her up afterwards. I'll swing by with Wilson on our way back from Mayfield."

That shouldn't cost him more than half an hour, forty minutes max. "Okay. Where do I need to take her?"

"The invitation is pinned to the fridge. Address and telephone number are noted inside."

When Rachel got home from school he was trying to persuade a dim-witted German nurse to give him her boss's home number. " _Ja, ich weiß, dass es in Deutschland nach Mitternacht ist, aber es ist_ … urgent … _dringend!_ "

"Where's mom?" Rachel asked.

"Gone," he replied shortly. Rachel withdrew wordlessly to her room.

When he finally got hold of the person he wanted to talk to, a rather sleepy researcher in charge of a clinical study at the teaching hospital in Heidelberg, Rachel popped into the living room again.

"You can't watch TV now," he said without waiting to hear what she wanted.

"When's mom coming back?" she asked.

He glanced at the clock. "Six-ish. Now shut up!" He turned back to his phone call. "Octreotide? What dosage?"

"Who's taking me to Chiara's birthday?"

"And the prednisone? … What happens if one increases the dosage? … Okay. Can you send me treatment plans? … Have you tried combining cyclophosphamide or cisplatin with the prednisone? … Yes, I _know_ it's risky. … Can you give me their phone number?"

Two phone calls and four emails later he finally remembered Rachel. By that time, according to the invitation, the birthday party had been under way for over two hours. Not worth the bother anymore, he decided, and phoned the Cancer Institute at Stanford University instead. Wilson would be happy to drive Rachel to all the birthday parties she wanted if he survived this.

* * *

Lisa was livid. "You _said_ you'd take her!"

"I lied." He hadn't meant to –- he'd honestly meant to drop Rachel off at that insipid party of hers –- but his good intentions weren't worth the effort it took to voice them. For all the good it had done Rachel, he might as well have lied intentionally.

"Why? _Why?_ "

He supposed he could tell her about his phone calls, but then, what difference did it make? So he shrugged with a show of indifference.

She threw her hands up. "If you'd just said you weren't going to do it, I'd have made other arrangements."

"Why didn't you? You know how I am."

"Because I was busy juggling two jobs and Wilson's appointment, and because I was benighted enough to believe that you could manage a simple domestic chore!"

That kindled his suspicions. "What, you dumped her on me to test my domesticity? To see whether I'd make a good dad for your orphan?" He glowered down at her. "I won't. I'm not the guy you're looking for."

A finger poked into his chest. "News flash, Gregory House! I wasn't looking for a mate for life. I was merely trying to keep things simple. I was hoping that I could ask a guy –- an _adult_ –- who's living in my household and eating my food to do me a simple favour, instead of having to phone round friends, neighbours and babysitters to find someone who can do it at short notice!"

Her calling him 'House' was a sure sign that he'd gone too far. He scratched his eyebrow with his thumbnail. "She'll survive. Life is full of birthday parties we can't attend."

"This," Lisa hissed at him, "isn't about a stupid birthday party. This is about me telling Rachel she could go, and then she couldn't. She's holed up in her room crying her heart out, because she believes I didn't care enough to make it happen. Do you know how many parties she has to forgo or watch from the sidelines because the parents organise some 'fun activity' that Rachel can't participate in? Last year her 'best friend' went caving on her birthday, fricking _caving_! There was no way Rachel could go. And now, _finally_ , there's a party that's 'wheelchair accessible', and _you_ couldn't …"

"You're getting what I did (or didn't do) mixed up in your mind with the suckotage of her life as a cripple," he couldn't help pointing out. "Those are two completely different things."

She rubbed her forehead tiredly with the heel of her hand as she gazed at Rachel's closed door. "Maybe. Maybe they are for you. But they aren't for Rachel."


	11. Manipulative Minors

"I thought I knew Cluedo," Wilson said, staring at the game board.

"It's easy," Rachel said encouragingly. "See, you get a token and half of these cards, and we've got to take one of each out first, but don't look at them! Oh, and when it's your turn you have to turn a wheel first."

"What are _those_ cards?" Wilson asked, pointing to another pile.

"You have to take one of those if you get a Dark Mark. It says what you have to do and if you're unlucky, you have to pay money. And if you have no money, you lose."

"I don't remember any money in Cluedo," Wilson said, pulling the rules book towards him, "or any sort of wheel on the game board. I remember Colonel Mustard in the Library with the Candlestick."

Rachel giggled. "There's no Co- Cornell Mustard." What a stupid name!

"So I gather," Wilson said. "But there's still a library, thank God! Okay, so the basics are the same: someone gets killed - no, kidnapped - and we have to figure out how and where and who."

Rachel prepared herself for a longer wait. It had taken Mom ages to figure out 'Harry Potter Cluedo', but neither she nor Wilson liked having her explain games to them. They preferred reading all that stuff in the book.

"Dark Mark," Wilson muttered. " _Spells_. Jeez, this is complicated!"

"Wilson?"

"Hmmm?" He was turning one of the wheels experimentally, ruining Rachel's careful set-up.

"How long is Pete staying?"

Wilson stopped changing the location of the doorways and looked at her. "I don't know. Why?"

She turned the wheel back to its proper position. Then she twisted one of the game coins to make it spin on the table. Finally she said, "He and Mom keep yelling at each other. It's not nice."

"True," Wilson said.

"So tell him to go away."

"Don't you like Pete?"

Rachel considered this. Sometimes Pete was better than any other grown up - he had the fun-nest ideas, he could pull ridiculous faces, and when he wanted to he could explain the coolest stuff. Other times, he was unbelievably grouchy or he'd stare into space not listening to anything that was going on.

"He's okay," Rachel said grudgingly. "But I want Mom happy again."

"She's fine; they've always been that way. It's her way of dealing with him."

"It's annoying."

Wilson rubbed the back of his neck, like when he was playing chess with her. "I guess I could leave; Pete would go with me."

"No!"

He stared at her.

"It's boring when you aren't here," Rachel explained. Wilson was fun. He played board games with her - even chess, which Mom hated. He cooked cool stuff with tons of meat in it and only token amounts of veggies. He could play songs from all her favourite musicals on Pete's guitar and sing them with her; Mom didn't know most of the songs, and she couldn't play _anything_ on the guitar. Which reminded her …

"Are you going to watch _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ with me?" On evenings when Mom had meetings (which was almost every evening at the moment), Rachel and Wilson had gotten into the habit of watching musicals together.

Wilson's eyes widened. "What gave you that idea?"

"That's what Pete rented," Rachel said, her heart sinking. Pete must have been making fun of her _again_. "He said you'd told him to bring it to watch with me. He said it was a … a classic." The way Pete had said it, drawing the word out, it had sounded as though a 'classic' was a very special kind of musical. "Isn't it?"

"Yes, but _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_ wasn't quite what I meant when I told him to get a classic," Wilson said. "It's not suitable for children."

"He said he'd watch it with us," Rachel wheedled. Pete mostly mocked them when they watched television together, but every now and then he'd join them, standing in the doorway at first making rude comments about the plot, the songs and the actors, but then slowly inching his way towards the couch until he'd end up sprawled next to Wilson. Those were the best evenings: he and Wilson would throw popcorn at each other, sing along loudly, and quote bits of the dialogue at each other.

Wilson was not to be tempted. "I'll get something else. Have you watched _The Jungle Book_?"

"Of course! And I don't want any more children's musicals. They're boring." Pete wouldn't want to watch those, and it was more fun with Pete there.

"Okay, I'll think of something. Where did he put my car keys?"

* * *

Rachel wheeled herself into the kitchen where Pete was sitting, his chin propped on the back of his hand, copying down a whole pile of numbers from his laptop screen onto a piece of paper. Rachel squinted at the paper.

"Hey, that's the picture I drew for Mom for her birthday! You can't take that!"

"Seems I can," he said without looking up. "The whole place is plastered with your squiggles; you think she'll notice if one is missing?"

"I could tell her," Rachel said. Then, while the statement still hung in the air, she said, "Wanna play with me?"

He looked at her over the top of his glasses, rather like the Wolf when he was dressed up as Grandma in Rachel's old illustrated fairy tale book. "Ni-ice," he drawled. "Such skill in the art of blackmail in one so young."

Rachel was stumped. Was 'blackmail' a card game? But she wasn't about to admit that she didn't know it. "Can we play something else?"

"Busy here."

"And when you've finished whatever you're doing?"

"I doubt it. Can you play anything interesting, like poker?"

Knowing that a 'no' would end the conversation, Rachel offered, "You could teach me."

His mouth twitched slightly, but when he looked back at his column of numbers, his expression grew grim again. "She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wouldn't approve," he said absently, rolling the salt shaker along the fingers of one hand while he tapped his teeth with the pencil he held in the other.

"You don't care about that," Rachel stated boldly.

He looked at her again, this time with a definite quirk around his mouth. "What makes you think that?"

Rachel huffed. "You've been annoying Mom ever since you and Wilson got back from your trip. She's _always_ yelling at you, and it's driving me crazy. You gotta stop!"

"You, and your mom, have got to stop blaming me for all the crap that's happening in your lives."

"Huh?"

Leaning back, he took off his glasses and folded them. "Didn't your mom teach you to say, 'Excuse me,' or 'I'm sorry, I didn't get that'?" He didn't wait for her answer. "Your mom is yelling at me non-stop because she wants something from me that she isn't getting. In short, she's letting off steam. It's got nothing to do with anything I've done."

"But - you're doing a _lot_ of naughty things."

"I've been told that I used to do much naughtier things without your mom getting her panties all in a twist," he said, his eyebrows wriggling in a very funny manner.

"What does she want from you?" Rachel asked, wondering whether she could bully him into giving it to Mom. When she got whiny, people tended to give her what she wanted.

"She wants me to cure Wilson. I can't. End of story."

Cure Wilson? He smelled funny sometimes, but not so bad that you couldn't sit next to him. Nana also smelled like that; she said it was her medicine, but Mom always rolled her eyes when she said that. Maybe it was what old, sick people smelled like. "What's Wilson got?"

"He's got cancer. You know what that is?"

Cancer was bad; she knew that. But Wilson was fine; he coughed sometimes, but that wasn't _bad_. When Rachel had a cough, she still had to go to school.

"He isn't sick," she said.

"Not so that you'd notice. It's inside him, where you can't see it, but it's there."

"What'll happen?"

"If I can't cure it? He'll die," Pete said without any inflection.

Grown-ups didn't tell children about other grown-ups dying. Or if they did, they tried to make it sound nice. Grown-ups always tried to make bad things seem like fun.

"You're lying," Rachel said.

Pete shrugged, but he wasn't smiling like he was making a joke. His expression was serious. "Ask your mom."

Rachel wrinkled up her nose. The last time she'd asked a grown-up about something she hadn't been supposed to know, it had ended very badly. That had been when she'd asked Julia about Pete driving a car into their house.

Pete seemed to read her thoughts. "Scared of asking her? Then figure out a way to make her spill the beans. Now scram, scat, lift anchor!" He flapped his hands towards the kitchen door.

* * *

"We watched _Mamma Mia_ ,' Rachel said to Mom. "They wore sparkly clothes and such high shoes!" She held her hands apart in illustration.

" _Mamma Mia_?" Mom echoed, looking doubtful. "Did you like it?"

Rachel considered the question. "It was okay, but there was too much kissing. Yuck!"

"Well, I guess it's meant for adults rather than children," Mom said. "Brush your hair, please."

"There was a girl who was going to get married," Rachel said. "And _she_ didn't know who her dad was either. In the end she had three dads."

Mom got this look like she'd eaten something sour. "You've got a dad," she said quietly. "Simon is your dad."

Rachel frowned. Mom had explained to her that her real mother had died after she was born and that Simon had been too young to look after her. But he was old now, well over twenty, and he still practically never came to see her. She'd get birthday cards and presents from him, but now that she could read, she could tell that the handwriting in his cards was the same as the one in the cards his parents - they'd asked her to call them 'Grandma' and 'Grandpa' - sent her, which meant that Simon didn't even remember her birthday or buy her presents.

"Are you going to marry Wilson?" Rachel asked. Wilson was a lot older than Simon, which wasn't cool, but at least he was around.

"No, sweetheart," Mom said, laughing a little. "Wilson and I are just good friends. Did that movie give you romantic ideas?" She twisted her bracelet, like she always did when she was thinking. "Life isn't like a movie, you know. In movies, everything is straightforward and simple and everything works out somehow. That's what makes them fun to watch, but that's not how it works in everyday life."

Actually, the movie had been 'stupendously stupid', as Pete said, but Pete and Wilson had sung along and had even done a funny dance in the living room until Wilson had collapsed onto the couch racked with coughs, upon which Pete had given him a funny look and had stalked out of the living room slamming the door behind him. Wilson had pretended that nothing had happened, but he'd stopped singing after that, probably thinking that Rachel wouldn't notice. But she _had_ noticed, because she was watching him to see whether he was really dying, like Pete said. He wasn't going to die of a stupid cough, was he?

Then again, Pete's expression had been scary - not a _I'm mad at you!_ scary, but a _I want to cry, even though I'm a grown-up_ scary. That was the worst kind of scary.

"Wilson coughed a lot today," Rachel said as casually as she could manage.

Mom, putting out her pyjamas, stilled. Then she turned to face her, leaning back against the chest of drawers and folding her arms over her chest. "What have you overheard?" she asked.

"I …," Rachel began, but couldn't think of anything that would explain her knowledge. "Pete said he's dying," she blurted out.

"Great!" Mom said the way she did when she meant the opposite of what she was saying. She rubbed her forehead tiredly.

With a sickening lurch Rachel realised that this meant Pete had told the truth. The corners of her mouth twitched downwards uncontrollably.

"Oh, honey!" Mom cried out, rushing over and plucking her out of her wheelchair. She sagged down onto the bed, cradling Rachel in her arms.

Rachel burrowed her face into Mom's blouse. "I don't want him to die," she said when she could speak again.

"We won't let him," Mom said.

"You mean you'n Pete?"

"Yes, Pete and I. Pete's a very good doctor. He cured _me_ once when I was sick, and Nana too."

"Then maybe you shouldn't yell at him so much," Rachel said.

"What? I don't …."

"If you keep yelling at him, he'll go. And then who'll cure Wilson? And if you aren't gonna marry Wilson, Wilson might go with him. Wilson said that if _he_ left, Pete would go too, so if Pete leaves, maybe Wilson will go with him. 'Cause they're friends." Rachel hiccupped. "And then there'll be no one left at all!"

Mom stared at her, mouth agape. Rachel wiped her nose on her sleeve, but Mom was too dumbstruck to object.

"Did you understand me, Mom?" Rachel asked after a moment. Mom was still staring the way Keith did in Math class when he had no clue how to do the sums. Keith was dense that way.

Mom jerked out of her thoughts. "Yes, I understood you," she said. " _No more yelling_. I got that." She stood up, putting Rachel down on the bed, and tossed the pyjamas over to her. "Here, get changed. I'll be back." With that she left the room.


	12. Divorce Counselling

The waiting room was decorated with impressionist prints, the curtains were in pastel colours, the furnishing bland. Wilson could have been in charge of the interior decoration. Pete put his feet up on one of the low tables and whistled tunelessly. Lisa pretended not to care; maybe she didn't. She took out her phone and started texting.

"Dr Cuddy, Dr House? I'm Richard Staines. Please come in." A man in his late forties, casually dressed, had appeared in the doorway. He ushered them into his consulting room.

Pete cast a quick glance around: bookshelves, more nondescript prints, a 'comfortable corner' with couch and armchairs, and a 'no nonsense' corner with desk and visitor chairs. They were guided to the 'comfortable' corner. He plonked himself into one of the armchairs, hoping that Lisa would take the other and force their host onto the couch, but Lisa was much too polite to do so. She seated herself at the end of the couch closest to his armchair, while Staines took the other armchair.

"Can I offer you something to drink?" he asked. "Coffee? A glass of water?"

When both demurred, he took out a case file, a notepad and a pen. "I got a somewhat cryptic email from Dr Nolan saying that you were in urgent need of some help in organising your family life."

Lisa answered with one of her tight smiles.

Staines took that as an assent. "We - my partner and I - specialise in helping couples who have parted ways to find amicable solutions to all aspects of child custody. My partner is a lawyer, I'm a therapist who has specialised in family therapy. Our normal procedure is that I gather all the necessary background information and help the couple to come to a decision regarding their respective rights and responsibilities. My partner ensures that the legal aspects are dealt with. We don't do couples counselling; if you feel in need of that, you should consult a couples counsellor. Any questions?"

Lisa shook her head.

"Good! Let's get to the specifics regarding your family situation and your relationship. The more I know about how you feel, the easier it will be for me to make suggestions that can be implemented on a long-term basis. I know this can be very painful, but trust me, it's better to confront your emotions than to pretend they don't exist; self-deception only drags out the whole process. And you've already taken a giant step by admitting that you have a problem for which you need some outside mediation, instead of trying to muddle through on your own."

Lisa nodded. Pete bit his tongue to stop himself from saying something about platitudes that could be found in any New Age manual.

"If I understood Darryl's email correctly, you used to date."

Lisa nodded.

"You have one child together, who …"

"We don't," Pete interrupted.

"Rachel is solely my child, and she isn't the issue," Lisa inserted smoothly.

"I'm sorry," Staines said, frowning at the printout of an email that was at the top of the case file. "I understood there's a boy named James."

Pete guffawed. " _James_ is forty-seven," he said.

Staines snapped the file shut. "Well, you didn't come here for the fun of it," he said, "so why don't you fill me in?"

Lisa leaned forward. "James Wilson is our mutual friend. He'll need health care soon and would like to avoid a hospital setting, so he's staying with me. Pete," she gestured towards him, "is helping out with Wilson, so he's staying with me too. It's important to Wilson to have Pete around, but Pete's driving me crazy."

Staines looked at him, puzzled. "You're not Greg House?"

Lisa chimed in. "He is. I … call him Pete."

(Apparently there was no need for him to say anything. He leaned back comfortably.)

"Let me see if I got this right: you have a friend, James, staying with you because his health is compromised. Dr House - can I call you Greg?" Pause. "Or Pete?"

"Pete's fine," he muttered.

"Fine. Pete, you're at Lisa's place expressly to help with James's care."

He nodded.

"Pete and Wilson have been friends for years," Lisa added.

"O-kay," Staines said, taking notes. "When did you date and for how long?"

"Does it matter?" Pete asked. "Wilson isn't our kid."

Staines put down his pen. "It usually does."

Lisa stepped up to the mark, as expected. "It was five years ago, and we dated for about a year. Then, about a year ago, we dated again for a few months," she said.

"You, Lisa, are finding the present arrangement stressful, but you believe it to be beneficial to James," Staines continued his summary.

"Yes."

"And you, Pete?"

He stretched out his legs. "I'm good with it."

"Lisa, what aspects of Pete's presence bother you? Is it the physical presence of an ex-partner in such close proximity or is it some habit of his? Or do you disagree on anything regarding James?"

"No," Lisa said hurriedly. "We agree about Wilson. It's about all we _do_ agree on. And I'm okay with having him there: we knew each other for years before we started dating, so I'm used to having him around without being in a relationship with him. It's just that the situation is difficult: I'm busy with work and with my daughter, Wilson is being … . He's depressed, and Pete isn't doing anything to make things easier for me. He isn't helping, and it's driving me nuts."

Staines made a few more notes. "Would it help if Pete moved out?"

"I doubt it. He'd be around all the time because of Wilson, so he'd still empty my fridge, leave his things lying around, annoy my daughter, play Domino Day with my CD collection, …"

He couldn't let such a misconception stand. "It was a Rube Goldberg machine, designed to switch the TV off."

Lisa's eyebrows entered into close communion with her hairline. "And I'd want a machine that did that when I have a perfectly good remote control because?"

"Because remote controls have infra-red senders that don't work through walls. My machine switched the TV off from the kitchen, which meant that your crippled kid didn't have to wheel herself back to the living room whenever she forgot to switch it off." (Not to mention that the rugrat had greatly enjoyed helping him gather and set up various parts of the machine.)

"My 'crippled kid' couldn't wheel her chair through the detritus afterwards to get to her bedroom! I spent an hour removing the debris to clear a path for her."

"Progress requires sacrifice," he said glibly.

"I see," Staines said. "Lisa, how did you deal with Pete's habits when you were dating him?"

Lisa hesitated for the first time. "When I was dating him, I had more leverage. At least, the first time round. The second time was so short that his habits weren't an issue."

"Leverage? In what sense?"

She flicked her wrist, embarrassed at having to spell it out. "Then, he wanted something I have. He doesn't now. That's our story in a nutshell."

"You're referring to sex," Staines said bluntly.

"Well, _yes_ ," Lisa said with a martyred, _do-I-have-to-state-the-obvious_ eye roll.

"You withheld sex whenever Pete's behaviour upset you," Staines summarised, his face professionally blank. Unfortunately his eyes refused to follow the example of his facial muscles - they closed and opened several times in quick succession, a nervous tick that gave away his emotional unease.

"Yes. … What else was I supposed to do?" She sat back, crossing her arms.

Staines tapped his notes. "Well, as you have noticed, it only works as long as you have sex as a bargaining chip. Couples for whom sex isn't an option, for whatever reason, also have to cope somehow. _And_ it only works if one partner is keener on getting sex than …"

"Believe me, it worked!"

"Did you ever try anything else?"

Lisa stared at Staines blankly.

Staines refused to give up. "Talk about what was bothering you? Ask him to change certain behaviours?"

"He could have talked J. Edgar Hoover into embracing communism by the sheer power of his logic. There's no way he would have let me _talk_ him into anything he didn't want. I couldn't even get him to …" She drew a hand through her hair. "Never mind, it's history."

(Wouldn't he just like to know what she hadn't been able to talk him into! When he listened to Chase or Wilson recapitulating their relationship, he got the impression that she'd had him pussy-whipped. When, however, he observed how she capitulated to his demands and graced even the most outrageous remarks with little more than an eye-roll, he found it hard to believe that he hadn't walked all over her.)

"But you must have realised even then that having him camp on the couch …"

"His own apartment," Lisa corrected.

"… or his own apartment, wouldn't work forever."

Lisa laughed. "My father was camped out on the couch so often, we'd joke that he could sub-let his bed."

(That explained a lot. He really, _really_ would like to meet her mother, but he guessed that wasn't an option considering he'd nearly killed both Cuddy daughters.)

"But it's not working now," Staines pointed out.

Lisa did her little head-shake thing coupled with a tight smile. "That's why we're here."

"Very well," Staines said. He sat up a bit straighter. "In situations like this one it can be helpful to focus on your former partner's strengths and to remind yourself of those attributes that make him a valuable ally even if he isn't a viable partner. Lisa, what are Pete's strengths?"

Lisa didn't have to think about this question. "He's loyal. When he has a goal nothing will stop him - and I mean _absolutely_ nothing. He's fearless, and I've never met anyone with such personal integrity."

(That didn't sound like him.)

She cast a side glance at him. "And - he's an incredible person. He's brilliant, he's funny, he knows everything."

(That sounded more like him.)

"When he's convinced of something he won't back down. That - can be a problem."

(That sounded _very much_ like him - in a euphemistic sort of way. In plain-speak it meant, 'He's a stubborn ass!' But Staines probably got that.)

"Okay, that was very good," Staines said. (Sure it was. Lisa was your poster girl for exceeding expectations, even in therapy, and she'd had years of that by now, he reckoned.) "What about you, Pete?"

He leered over at Lisa. "She's smokin' hawt." He drawled it out with a fake Texan accent.

Lisa levelled a hard stare at him, while Staines considered him. "I take it that coming here wasn't _your_ idea," he said.

"Nope." (Lisa had marched into the living room after work jangling her car keys and had informed him that he could either come with her _stat_ to meet someone who'd help them or pack his things and get out.)

"And yet you came."

He put on his best 'put-upon' expression, thrusting out his lower lip. "If I hadn't come, she wouldn't have let me play with Jimmy any more."

More eye twitching. "Okay. What else did you like about Lisa when you started dating her?"

He scrutinised the wallpaper on the wall behind Staines, but it held no answers. "I don't remember," he said.

"Pete, if we're to make progress, …"

"He _really_ doesn't remember," Lisa interposed, rising unbidden to his defence. "He had … an accident, and he suffers from retrograde amnesia."

"Oh," Staines said, "that's - interesting." And he meant it.

"Finished staring at the chimp in the zoo?" Pete barked.

Staines was frowning thoughtfully. "So … if you don't remember dating Lisa, you have no reason to resent her," he finally said.

"I don't resent her. As you said yourself, coming here was her idea, not mine," Pete pointed out. " _I'm_ fine!"

(This was going in circles.)

"And you're sure that your behaviour is not intended to annoy her," Staines prodded.

"Abso-fucking-lutely!"

"He's trying to convince me that he's not good enough for me. And he does have reason to resent me," Lisa said. "When we started dating the second time, he had amnesia already, and I didn't tell him that we'd dated before." She wasn't looking at them; she was picking imaginary lint off her sweater.

Staines breathed out heavily and leaned back. "This is complicated," he said. "I'm not sure I have the facts sorted in my mind."

Pete generously helped out with the Spark Notes of their personal history. "It's easy. We dated; I fucked it up; I fried my brain. We dated again; we split up; Wilson got sick."

Lisa had practically picked a hole in her sweater by now and judging by her next contribution, she hadn't really been listening. She just continued her guilt trip exactly where she'd left off before. "And I ordered his leg to be amputated," she half whispered.

It was time to put a stop to her random confidences. "If you're in need of therapy, call your shrink," he said brutally, "but spare us your confessions. _I_ don't remember what you did; _he_ doesn't know; _neither_ of us care. You're only easing your own conscience."

"Amputation?" Staines asked. Judging by his expression, he'd lost the plot some time ago, and his eyelids were competing with hummingbirds' wings.

Pete knocked on his prosthetic. "Robo-Doc here," he said. "Accident; I was unconscious; she ordered the procedure. It's not relevant." He folded his arms to indicate that the access route to the amputation was closed to therapeutic traffic.

Staines got the message. "Okay, let's go back a bit. Let's go with the assumption that you don't resent Lisa."

"Oh, _thank_ you!"

" _Are_ you trying to convince her that you're not good enough for her?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because she wants a relationship, but you don't?" Staines surmised.

(Maybe he wasn't a total moron.)

"I don't want …," Lisa said, but shut her mouth again when Pete grinned at her.

"It's good to be honest about your feelings," Staines told Lisa. Pete mentally high-fived him. "It's the only way we can resolve the situation. Now, let's establish some ground rules. Lisa, try to keep all communication with Pete down to a bare minimum. Avoid situations where you're alone with him. That way, he won't feel like he's being pressured into something he doesn't want."

"I'm _not_ pressuring …," Lisa began. And much as Pete would have liked to see her squirm some more under Staines's prejudiced eye, he deemed it more important to put an end to this charade.

"I don't feel pressured by her," he interrupted Lisa, turning to Staines.

Staines more or less ignored his statement. "Pete, you shouldn't resort to _showing_ Lisa that you don't want a relationship. If you feel cornered, then _say_ so! Send clear, unequivocal messages. Actions can be misinterpreted; words, however, …"

" … can also be misunderstood," Pete cut in, "judging by the conclusions you've reached. Lisa isn't hitting on me at every opportunity. I'm not feeling molested."

"Then why are you acting up?" Staines asked.

Pete cocked his head to the left. "Aren't you supposed to be neutral?"

Staines smiled without humour. "I _am_ being neutral. That doesn't blind me to your behaviour. Ever since you got here you've been acting bored and put-upon, as though you were doing Lisa a favour, when it seems to me that she's doing _you_ a favour: she's letting you stay at _her_ place so that you can be with your friend."

"I'm doing Wilson a favour, not him," Lisa said tiredly. "And I profit too, as long as Wilson is happy. I _asked_ Pete to come and stay with me."

"Pete, maybe you aren't 'good' with the situation after all. Do you feel that you've been dragged into something you didn't want to get involved in?"

(A few weeks ago that would have been true. He'd felt imposed on, manipulated. Now, he wouldn't leave even if Lisa begged him to.)

"Nope," he answered thoughtfully. Feeling Staines's gaze on him, he added, "That's my 'normal' behaviour. But Lisa has seen so little of me the past five years that she has forgotten what it's like."

"I certainly haven't!" Lisa protested. "Yes, it's your default behaviour - when you're bored or when you're trying to prove a point. You're not bored at the moment - your brain is working overtime to manipulate Wilson into getting treatment - so that only leaves 'proving a point'."

He looked away, tapping the arm of his chair irritably. He needed something to work with, something for his fingers, but there was nothing suitable within reach, so he got up and moved over to the desk. There was bound to be something there - a paperweight, some clips, elastics, a few pens, maybe even a stress ball?

"It's a very good point," he muttered.

Staines half-turned to follow his progress. "Pete, maybe you could dispense with making this point. Even if Lisa should want a relationship again, …"

"I don't!" Lisa interjected.

"… _Maybe_ wants a relationship again, as long as you don't feel pressured by her, it's not your problem." He turned to Lisa again. "Do you feel that he's trying to shield you?"

"Yes!" Lisa expelled a long breath, like someone who had finally got a message across to a particularly dense kid.

"Pete?" Staines said. "Don't! She can look after herself."

"She can't!" Pete exploded. "She's too goddam stupid!"

Staines stared at him. He stomped up to Staines's armchair and glowered down at the man. "Often," Staines said carefully, "people feel responsible for their former partners or think they need to look out for them. That seems to be the case here. Lisa is an intelligent woman, Pete. She can cope …,"

"Yeah? Then why is she letting a domestic abuser live with her?"

"James?" Staines asked, leaning forward, suddenly very intent. "James is an abuser?"

"No, me! I crashed my car through her house when I saw her with another guy." The silence that followed his statement left him ample time to regret having made it.

Staines's eyes flickered to and fro between them. "Why did you keep this from me till now?" he finally said.

Pete shrugged, pinching his lips together.

Lisa leaned her forehead on her fingertips. "He … wasn't out to harm me. … He was trying to kill himself, not me. …" She rolled her hand. "It was before his amnesia," she added as though that made it better. "He can't even remember it."

"It's still important. I definitely can't recommend having Pete stay with you, now that I know this," Staines pointed out.

Lisa smiled at Staines apologetically. "That's why I didn't tell you. It prejudices people against Pete when they hear about it."

As manipulations went it was a fairly primitive one, but he had to give her kudos for attempting to sell him as a victim of slander and misunderstandings. Perhaps ploys like this one worked on donors or insurance reps, but Staines didn't look convinced. Luckily his phone beeped at that moment. Staines glanced at it and grimaced.

"I'm afraid our session is over," he said, "and it's too late to cancel my next session. In view of the situation, however, I suggest that you come again tomorrow at … let me see …" He tapped the screen of his phone. "I can cancel the three o'clock session. At three p.m.?"

Lisa nodded. Pete kept his face blank. It wasn't as though they could _make_ him come again. When Staines held out his hand, he ignored it, preferring to take the quickest route to the door.

By the time he reached the parking lot he'd shaken Lisa off completely, her short legs and heels being no match for him with his state-of-the-art prosthetic, and he'd have enjoyed nothing better than to drive away leaving her standing in the middle of nowhere, but it was her car and she had the keys, so he ended up kicking his heels while she navigated the potholes that riddled the parking lot. When she unlocked the car, he slid ungraciously into the passenger seat.

"Did you have to tell him - that?" she said, fastening her seat belt.

"I thought that was the idea: openness, brutal honesty, all cards on the table," he replied, although he silently agreed with her that it had been a stupid thing to do.

"Honesty, yes - between you and me. Not between us and _him_!"

"You heard him. If he's to help us, he needs background information," he said, aiming for nonchalance.

"I gave him all the background information he needed. What you gave him just distracted him! You know how it'll be from now on: he'll be harping on about me needing to distance myself from you, he'll insist on a change in the living arrangement, and it'll be all about preventing another 'attack'," she rolled her eyes and her hand drolly in illustration, "instead of focusing on how we're to get Wilson through this."

She had a point, but he couldn't help contradicting her. "You won't be of much use to Wilson if you're dead. It's common sense to stay away from me."

"At the moment there's a greater likelihood of Wilson dying if you disappear than of me dying if you stay. I'm not going to kill Wilson for the sake of a principle."

"What makes you think I can save Wilson?" he asked moodily.

"You'd better!" she said, as though that settled the matter and killed the cancer. "And tomorrow you'll cooperate with Staines."

"No way! Tomorrow you're on your own."

"Pete, …"

"You said it yourself: it's a waste of time. He's going to dig around in our past, which I can't even remember. This was a long shot right from the start; now it's a lost cause."

"So what do you suggest?" she asked challengingly. "So far, all you've done is mock my suggestions for getting the situation under control and sabotage the session with Staines."

He dug out the key that had been burning a hole in his pocket for the past hour and flourished it in her face.

"What's that?" she asked, leaning back to get it into focus.

"A Room of My Own," he said, grinning smugly. "A whole apartment, actually."

"And that is a great suggestion _now_ , coming from you, but was a crappy one when it came from Staines?"

"I didn't need Staines to suggest it. I had the idea all by myself," he pointed out.

"You'll still drive me crazy when you come to see Wilson," Lisa said.

"I won't; I'm taking Wilson with me."

She stared at him in disbelief. "You're going to look after Wilson when he's dying?"

He shrugged carelessly, staring out of the window in front of him. "Why not? It's not like _I_ have a full-time job and family obligations."

"I was going to employ caregivers," Lisa said, answering his unspoken question, "but that's not what I meant."

There was something in her tone that made him glance at her. She was staring out of the window now, chewing on her lip.

"I don't think _Wilson_ will care if I have to pump myself full of drugs to stay on my legs," he said, not quite feeling guilty when she flinched. He'd gotten widely differing accounts of their mega-break-up from Wilson, Chase and Taub; the only thing all accounts had in common was a relapse on his part.

"Fine," she said after a pause, "if that's what you and Wilson want. What does Wilson say about this?"

"Wilson says that the kid shouldn't have to watch him die." Actually, Wilson had said that he couldn't impose on Lisa, not when she was already stretched to the limit with her new obligations as interim dean, but if he told her that, she'd feel obliged to prove the opposite.

She leaned back and closed her eyes. "No, I suppose not," she finally said, "but she'll miss him."

"She can visit every day for all I care - at least for as long as Wilson is fit enough to keep her occupied."

"She's _eight_ , Pete! That's not an age at which she can traipse around Philly on her own, and I haven't got the time to drive her everywhere."

She couldn't have served him a better straight line if they'd practised this conversation. "I've seen her get into the elevator and press the button to the first floor," he said, proffering the key on his flat palm for closer inspection.

Lisa looked at it, frowning. Then she looked at him questioningly.

"Haven't you noticed that there's no one living in the right hand apartment on the first floor?" he asked.

"Na-a," she said, "there's a couple living there. Both of them teach at university. French and history, I think."

"The lights in the apartment go on at six p.m. every evening, even though it's light till past eight now, and go off again at eleven p.m. They've set their lights on timer to discourage burglars, but they've been gone for over two months."

"So your clever plan is to occupy their apartment? That's crazy, even by your standards!"

"Thanks. But, no, that wasn't the plan. I talked to your concierge-cum-caretaker, and he contacted them for me. They're on a sabbatical in Paris, and they're prepared to lease it out for the next few months."

He watched the emotions warring in her face: grudging admiration interlocked with exasperation. The latter won hands down.

"You put me through that _awful_ session with Staines when you had a solution at hand, you ass? I should …" She trailed off, leaving open what deeds of horror she was inflicting on him in her fantasies.

He turned to the passenger window so she wouldn't see the slow smile on his lips. Her accusation was an indirect admission that his idea was better than hers, and that was all he asked for.


	13. Crazy Plans

_He was in a hospital, running through the corridors looking for Amy. If he didn't find her soon, he'd be too late. For what, he didn't know; all he knew was that he needed to hurry. He pulled open door after door, but it was never Amy screaming in labour behind them. It was always some other woman, some still in labour, others holding their newborn infants. Doctors and midwives glanced up in irritation, not mollified by his hasty apologies._

_He'd checked every door there was, and now the neon-lit corridor stretched on endlessly. Right at the end there was a big heavy double door with two round panes in it, the kind of door that led to operation theatres. It was quiet behind the door, no high pitched screaming, no soothing murmurs, no baby's wails, yet he_ knew _that Amy and the baby must be behind that door. He pushed it open._

_It was a huge OT, more of an arena, really, with an observation gallery running all round it. But other than the table at the centre it was empty. The table itself was covered with the detritus of an operation; scalpels, tweezers and needles lay haphazardly among swabs, bloodied green sheets were bunched up at one end. On a rotating stool next to the table sat House, the 'old' House with stubble on his chin and an air of melancholy, twirling his cane as he spun gently to and fro._

" _Where's Amy?" he yelled at House. "Where's my baby?"_

" _Your_ baby _?" House let out a snort of derision. "You had a tumour, Wilson, not a parasite. But we got all of it."_

_He held up a glass filled with a clear liquid. In it swam a foetus._

He sat up straight in bed, clutching his chest. He was damp, his forehead clammy, his lungs tight with apprehension – and with the 'parasite' that was taking over his chest cavity. He waited for a few minutes, but his breathing still didn't ease. Instead, he was racked by a bout of coughing.

This couldn't continue. In between coughs he pushed off his covers and rotated his legs over the side of the bed. Everything was still a bit unfamiliar; although the apartment mirrored Cuddy's upstairs, he had the master bedroom here and House the guest room. When he tried to slip his feet into his slippers, one of them slid under the bed instead of onto his foot. He sighed and gave up.

The living room was dark, but a flicker of coloured light indicated that Pete was in there either watching television or napping in front of it. The amputation hadn't changed his sleep patterns; according to Wilson's estimate he got as much sleep from his intermittent naps on various chairs, settees and couches as he got in the four or so hours he actually spent in bed.

Wilson managed to contain his cough until he had reached the kitchen, but then another bout made him double over and collapse into one of the chairs. When he looked up again wheezing, House was framed in the doorway, silently watching him. Wilson lowered his eyes as he got up to get a glass and fill it at the faucet. When he turned around again, House had disappeared. Wilson sighed. He still hadn't gotten used to how quickly and silently House could move with his prosthetic.

He followed him into the living room. The first thing House had done when they'd moved in two days ago was to replace the tiny television set with a state-of-the-art flatscreen. The programme he was watching, an old western, didn't do the screen justice, but judging by House's set expression he wasn't really riveted by the lone rider galloping between rocks and giant cacti. (House would know what they were called.)

Wilson sat down gingerly beside him, hoping that an upright position would ease the pressure on his oesophagus. House stubbornly stared at the screen, his mouth in a hard, straight line and a crease of annoyance between his brows.

"One round, just _one_ round of neo-adjuvant chemo!" House had yelled at him earlier in the kitchen, thrusting a sheaf of print-outs at him. "It should shrink the tumour enough to make it operable."

"And if it doesn't?" he had asked.

"Then we revert to Plan A: you come back here to die. You lose nothing."

"I do: a lot of hair," Wilson had quipped to lighten the atmosphere. And a compromised immune system, he had added silently.

"Chicks dig the bald look," House had said. "You'll be warding them off."

"As evidenced by the queue outside your door," he'd said drily, flicking through House's treatment plan. He'd had to hand it to House: it was thoroughly researched, it resorted to the best and most recent drug combinations on the market, and it was daring. Very daring. _Too_ daring.

He had looked up at House. "This … will kill me," he'd said.

House had shrugged. "Maybe. But you're dying anyway, so no difference there."

" _Eight months'_ difference! Maybe even ten."

House's mouth had twitched upward to concede the point, but he hadn't given up the match as lost – as yet. "But if this kills you, it'll be quick and comparatively painless."

"You can't know that."

"If you don't do this, you will _definitely_ die and it will _definitely_ be painful! There's only so much that morphine can do."

Wilson had looked at the words and numbers – cetuximab, cisplatin, dixorubicin, prednisone with their respective dosages – until they'd swum before his eyes. Then he'd thrust the papers aside.

"I'm not doing it," he'd said.

They hadn't talked the rest of the evening.

Now Wilson said, "How much do you estimate this will shrink the tumour?"

House slowly turned his head to look at him. "Thirty percent. Thirty-five, if we're very lucky."

Wilson felt a pang of disappointment that he couldn't quite place; the numbers corresponded with Wilson's estimate, and had House named a higher number he'd have called him on his bullshit. Yet in some dark, hidden corner of his mind he must have been hoping that House would pull a miracle cure out of his sleeve that would trump all Wilson's knowledge and experience.

"No surgeon will resection the tumour unless it shrinks to about half its present size," he said.

"Chase has agreed to excise it if we can shrink it by thirty percent," House said.

Chase was either incredibly stupid or deliberately misinformed.

"Has he seen the scans?" Wilson asked. House was quite capable of keeping such trivial little details as the tumour's present size from Chase.

"Yep," House said.

Stupid it was, then. Or House was blackmailing him.

"Okay," Wilson said slowly. "O-kay. I'll do it."

House pumped his fist in the air.

* * *

"This is crazy!" Cuddy said. She didn't know who to take apart first, so she chose the default option, Pete. "Was this your idea?"

Pete was stretched out comfortably on the couch of the downstairs apartment, the one that Cuddy already thought of as 'Wilson's'. "The chemo regime? Yeah, that's all mine," he said with his usual mixture of arrogance and pride. "The do-it-yourself stratagem is all Wilson's, though."

She swung around to impale Wilson with her glare.

Wilson raised his hands defensively. "I don't want to be hospitalised," he said.

"Right, you'd prefer to die in my place," she said.

" _Our_ place. The upstairs is _your_ personal space, the downstairs _our_ personal space," Pete said, drawing imaginary 'personal space' circles first around Cuddy and then around himself and Wilson.

She wanted to slap him. Wilson grinned.

"How's this supposed to work?" she asked.

"We have meds in the fridge and lots 'n lots of puke potties." Pete leaned sideways, dangling an arm over the armrest of the couch. Pulling an emesis basin out of a huge shopping bag, he brandished it like a shield. "Then there's Depends, …" He dug around in the bag again.

"Shut up, House!" Wilson said, looking uncomfortable.

Cuddy wasn't amused. "What happens when his white blood count drops?"

Pete pulled out sterile gloves, face masks, and a bottle of disinfectant.

Cuddy sat down opposite the two men and leaned forward. "I don't know what fairy tales you've been telling yourselves, but with the kind of chemo that you're proposing Wilson won't be able to fend off the common cold, let alone pneumonia. Wilson, this is stupid!"

"I'd rather die in my own four walls than in a hospital," Wilson said, not looking Cuddy in the eye.

"Fine! I get that. But what do you gain if you cure your cancer, but die of an infection instead?"

Wilson was silent.

Cuddy took this to mean that he concurred with her. She stood up. "Right. I'll phone Pearson and get you admitted."

"Cuddy, that isn't going to work."

She halted, her phone already in her hand.

Wilson tapped the paper outlining the chemo regime that Pete had worked out. "No oncologist is going to prescribe this regime. Hell, no licensed physician _can_ support this. The watered-down version that's being tested in Germany hasn't got FDA approval for testing as yet; anyone who tries this out on a patient will have to deal with a medical malpractice inquiry. There's no way your oncology department will agree to do this."

Cuddy opened her mouth to contradict Wilson, but then she shut it again. He was right. At PPTH the staff would have gone through the fire for him, the oncology department would have followed his instructions, Pete would have manipulated and lied his way through any questions, and no one would have been the wiser. But here Wilson was practically a stranger, and she didn't as yet command the loyalty of her staff the way she had done at PPTH. No, even if she found an oncologist who was prepared to do her and Wilson's bidding, there'd be a leak, and then there'd be an inquiry, and that would be the end of her medical career.

She bit her lip. "Then … then don't do this."

"Exactly!" Pete interposed. "Die a slow, miserable death instead!"

She shushed him with a wave of her hand without moving her focus from Wilson. "Do a normal course: four to six cycles," she said.

"We've been over this, Cuddy," Wilson said. "Any reasonable course with multiple cycles will take months. I don't want that; I want to be around when my child is born."

Cuddy turned to Pete again. "And you're okay with this?"

Pete's mouth twitched, showing that he wasn't 100% happy. "It's risky, but – yeah, I'm okay with it if he is. It's his choice, Lisa."

That was rich, coming from him! "Since when do you advocate letting people do stupid things that'll kill them?" she asked.

"I owe him," Pete said, his eyes clear and guileless. "He helped me nuke my brain and I'm happy now." He scratched his chin. "Happy within reason," he amended, "so in return, I'll help him nuke his tumour."

This was … surreal. Where was House, the man who fought tooth and nail to keep his patients alive? Who the hell was this pod person?

"If he dies, you'll get tossed into jail," she finally said, not even hoping that this would convince Pete. It was more a prediction that would allow her to say, 'I told you so!' when the inevitable happened. She added as an afterthought, " _We'll_ get tossed into jail."

She couldn't afford to do this. Pete, with his amnesia and lack of a medical licence, might be able to talk his way out of legal consequences, but as a licensed physician who had to make responsible medical decisions every day, she wouldn't be able to plead ignorance. She'd lose her licence and her job, and if Wilson's family decided to sue, …

She decided not to follow that line of thought.

"I'm out," she said. "I'm not doing this."

Pete wasn't put out in the least. "We can manage on our own," he said smugly. "We don't need you to mother us. Go back to your kid, Lisa. Smother her in superfluous affection!"

Now _that_ was the House she'd known before his brain surgery – sharp and precise as he poked his stick into open wounds. He _knew_ how she felt about neglecting Rachel; did he have to bring it up again and again?

She silently willed him to take it back or at least to mitigate the harshness of his words by some conciliatory gesture, but he smiled at her without warmth.

"Shoo!" he said. "Go! The quicker you're gone, the sooner we can start."

She turned on her heel to leave.

As she reached the door she heard Pete say to Wilson (she'd bet her favourite pair of heels that she was meant to overhear him), "It's more fun without her, anyway. I doubt she wants to watch _Horny Housewives of Houston_."

* * *

She managed to ignore the goings-on three floors below her for a sum total of three-and-a-half days.

"Isn't Wilson cooking today?" Rachel asked when she came into the kitchen on the fourth day.

"No, dear," Cuddy answered, ignoring Rachel's frown of disapproval as she placed a plate of lentil stew in front of her.

"He didn't cook yesterday either, or the day before," Rachel grumbled. "He hasn't even been here."

"He won't be here for some time now, honey. He's getting treatment for his cancer."

"Oh, has Pete found a cure?" Rachel said brightly.

Cuddy pressed her lips together before forcing a smile onto her face. "He thinks he has," she said, exercising rigorous self-control so that no hint of irony entered her voice. Rachel had developed basic skills in detecting irony recently, possibly as a result of spending too much time around Pete.

"Oh, goody! Wilson says he's the best doctor in the world."

"Yes, he is," Cuddy said, thankful that they were on more solid ground here.

Rachel poked at the food on her plate. "When will Wilson come home?"

Cuddy was speechless. That Rachel believed that Wilson was being treated in hospital didn't surprise her; Rachel, having spent the best part of a year there herself, automatically assumed that everyone with medical issues had to get in-house treatment. But since when did Rachel consider their house Wilson's home?

And how would Rachel react if Wilson died of the side effects of his chemo treatment?

Cuddy, who had been eating assiduously in order to set a good example, put down her fork. (Rachel, sensing that the door to avoiding the meal was opening a crack, promptly put down her fork too.) So far, she had been working off the premise that she shouldn't allow Wilson to kill himself for his own sake. Now it struck her that she also had an obligation towards Rachel to keep him alive if possible.

Rachel had few adults in her life. There was Julia, of course, and her husband Rob, but although they were on talking terms again, visits were fewer in number than they had been before Julia had found out that House was back in their lives. It wasn't that Julia and Rob bore her ill feelings (nor would she blame them if they did); it was more that circumstances dictated that they see each other less. Her mother was living with Julia's family now, and unlike her younger daughter she refused to tiptoe around the elephant in the living room. No, her mother insisted on tweaking its ears, pulling its tail, and pouring pepper down its trunk at every opportunity. Julia said tolerantly that it was a sign of old age, but Cuddy couldn't remember a time when her mother hadn't been like this. The only sign of old age that _she_ could detect was that Arlene Cuddy no longer felt obliged to camouflage her vindictiveness under a layer of maternal concern.

Oh, and there was Rachel's birth father, Simon, but so far his interest in Rachel had been minimal. His parents thankfully colluded with Cuddy to keep this unpleasant truth from Rachel by sending her birthday and Christmas presents in his name, but that didn't mean that Rachel felt any sort of attachment to a man (read: man-child) who she'd met twice in her entire life.

That only left Wilson.

Another unpleasant thought struck Cuddy: what if Wilson died and Rachel discovered that he'd passed away in an apartment right below her feet, so to say? There was no knowing how she'd react. Would she ever be able to pass the front door of the first floor apartment without thinking of Wilson? Would she fear that if Wilson died in this house, so could she or her mother?

House had forced her to uproot her family and start afresh; there was no way that Wilson would do the same! She wasn't going to move again, not if she could avoid it.

Giving up all pretence of eating, Cuddy pushed her plate away. "Rachel, would you mind staying at someone else's place for a few days?" she asked.

"Why?" Rachel asked suspiciously.

"Pete will need some help with Wilson," Cuddy said. "Wilson is going to be very weak and feverish."

"I can help," Rachel said.

"And he's going to be puking all the time," Cuddy added.

Rachel promptly back-pedalled. "Can I stay with Emma?" she asked.

"Let's see," Cuddy said. Palming Rachel off on her best friend Emma would be the best solution to her childcare problems. Emma and Rachel attended the same school, so Cuddy wouldn't need to bother about organising drop-offs and pick-ups.

But Emma's parents declined politely. They were off on a family gathering the coming weekend and still had preparations to make. They were sorry, but this week was an absolute no-go.

Cuddy got that. She'd gotten used to the inconveniences of living with a child with a major disability, but she still remembered those first weeks and months when she'd adjusted their lives to fit around Rachel's wheelchair. She had rearranged their furniture (so that Rachel could get everywhere in a wheelchair and everything Rachel needed was at waist level) and her schedule (so that she had an extra hour in the morning and fifteen minutes in the evening to assist Rachel when she got ready). She routinely planned in extra time for every commute (Rachel needed to be helped in and out of the car and her wheelchair had to be folded and placed in the trunk). She had learned the hard way that locations had to be sussed out beforehand to make sure they were wheelchair-accessible in every respect.

But families who weren't used to such measures regularly got wrong-footed when they offered to take Rachel for the day. Most of her friends who offered to take Rachel assumed that a car with a big trunk for the wheelchair and a strong guy to heave Rachel in and out of it would do the job. Cuddy had lost count of the number of times that she'd picked Rachel up from friends whose strained smiles belied their protestations that the day had been lovely and stress-free. On the ride home Rachel would inevitably tell tales of movies or plays missed because her hosts had miscalculated the time required to get a disabled child to the theatre, of fun parks that were wheelchair accessible but didn't allow disabled children on most of the rides, of museums that were so crowded that they'd had to wait ten minutes to access the elevator every time they wanted to go to the next level.

Yes, Cuddy could understand why Emma's parents didn't need Rachel around when they were already on a tight schedule.

Her next-door neighbour Louisa was good as a last-minute stop-gap, but the fact that she lived in the same house and shot her mouth off about everything, even in front of Rachel, disqualified her in this instance. If Wilson died in the downstairs apartment, she'd never stop talking about it; expecting her to shield Rachel from the knowledge was like placing a drug addict in the hospital pharmacy and hoping they wouldn't help themselves.

That left Julia in Princeton. She wasn't Cuddy's preferred option, because Rachel would miss school. Nor would Julia be enthusiastic about having Rachel under her feet all day when her children were in school, but that wasn't Cuddy's problem.

Julia's lack of enthusiasm, however, stemmed from quite a different source.

"I'm sorry Wilson has taken a turn for the worse," she said when Cuddy phoned her to give her the Spark Notes version of what was going on, a version that focused on Wilson's suffering, omitting all references to non-FDA-approved treatment options. Julia paused, then she said, "Where is House?"

"House?" Cuddy echoed to buy time.

"Yes, House! Lisa, you don't expect me to believe that House isn't involved in Wilson's health care, do you? He's at your place, isn't he?"

"No, he's got a place of his own," Cuddy said, glad that she needn't lie about that and even gladder that Julia didn't know where that place was.

Julia cleared her throat, a sure sign that she was about to say something that wouldn't go down well. "Lisa, I'm not getting involved in anything that features Greg House, even if he's only playing a minor role. We _agreed_ that you wouldn't bring Rachel to me so you can see him."

"Julia, I'm not 'seeing' him! He's here solely because of Wilson, and we aren't interested in each other in that way!"

"I'm sorry, but you are totally unpredictable with regard to House. I don't care what you call your present relationship, but I want nothing to do with it. Lisa, don't push this, please!"

There was nothing to be done.

After Cuddy hung up, she sat at her desk tapping her nails on its surface. There was _one_ other option …

* * *

"Hey, kiddo," Lucas said to Rachel, mussing up her hair. "Long time, no see. You've grown." He picked her up and swung her around. "Whoa, you're heavy!"

Rachel giggled joyfully. "I weigh fifty-five pounds!" she declared proudly.

With Rachel still on his arm, Lucas gave Cuddy a warm hug. "You look great," he said.

"Thanks," Cuddy said drily. She knew she had gained weight in all the wrong places and had bags under her eyes. She retaliated with, "So do you."

Lucas had thickened considerably around the waist – a jaundiced eye might even detect a slight paunch – and his jowls were beginning to sag. In short, he looked the family man that he now was.

"How are Cheryl and the girls?" Cuddy asked.

Lucas put Rachel back into her wheelchair, got out his phone and pulled up some pictures of his pretty young wife and two adorable blonde girls. "There's Cheryl with Lucy, … and here's Marcia. You haven't met Marcia yet, have you, Rachel? She's six months old now." He smiled fondly at his daughter's picture.

"Oh, she's so pretty!" Cuddy gushed, hoping that Rachel wouldn't spoil the moment by saying something incredibly insensitive.

But Rachel merely said, "She's got pretty curls. Lucy looks different."

"That's because she's almost three now, and she was a baby when you last saw her," Lucas said. "I hope you aren't scared of dogs. We've got two now, golden retrievers." He scrolled down some more and then proffered his phone to Rachel.

"Wow, they're cute!" Rachel said, with considerably more enthusiasm. "Mom, I want a dog too."

"Let's see," Cuddy said and quickly changed the topic. "Lucas lives in Trenton. That's close to where Julia lives, so you've got a car ride of about an hour. Why don't you get something to read?"

When Rachel was gone, she turned back to Lucas, who had settled himself comfortably on the couch. "And this is really okay with Cheryl?" she asked. Lucas had babysat Rachel a few times before he'd gotten married, but ever since he and Cheryl had started their own family, Cuddy had hesitated to impose on him and he hadn't volunteered of his own accord.

"Sure," he said easily. "What's one more kid when the place is a crazy-house anyway?"

Cuddy decided she didn't really want to know whether Cheryl approved of Lucas's generous offer or not.

"So, to what do I owe the honour?" he asked, his alert eyes belying his relaxed posture. "Don't get me wrong – I'm happy to take Rachel for as long as you like – but since when do you let your kid miss school, and why isn't the intrepid Julia bearing the brunt of whatever crisis you've brought down on yourself?"

Half the truth was better than a full-blown lie. "I'm interim dean, but I've still got my old department to run," Cuddy said, "and it's beginning to get to me. Julia has already got my mother, who is – difficult. So …"

"And this hasn't got anything to do with Wilson's medical file that I 'organised' for House a few months ago? Or that lab technician that I'm still observing for him?"

Cuddy's brain filed the first part of his statement away for later consideration (why on earth was Pete using Lucas's professional services after what Lucas had done to his property not so long ago?) as it attempted to make sense of the second part. "You're observing – who?"

"Oops," Lucas said. "I thought you knew."

Both were silent, eyeing each other warily.

"Tell you what," Lucas finally said. "You ask me no questions, I ask you no questions."

"O-kay," Cuddy said slowly. She badly wanted to know who he was observing and why, but then again, she'd rather not discuss Wilson and Pete with him. Wilson would certainly object, and although Lucas had implied that Pete was employing him in some capacity, that wasn't necessarily the whole truth.

"So, you've got dogs now," she said instead.

"Yes, and a house to go along with them," Lucas said, exuding enthusiasm.

The next thing Cuddy knew, she was looking at pictures of a suburban home with picket fence, green shutters, and a sandbox in the back yard. Then, pictures of the living room, kitchen (complete with all modern amenities), master bedroom, a children's bedroom, another children's bedroom, and a guest room. Of course, the children or the dogs or both featured in every picture.

"It's lovely," she said.

Lucas looked at her knowingly. "No regrets?" he asked.

"No," Cuddy said, "no regrets. It's wonderful, I'm sure, but it's not … _me_."

"Oh, it's what you wanted," Lucas said. When Cuddy made to protest, he added, "It was just that I wasn't the guy you wanted it with, and the guy you wanted wasn't the guy you could have had this with. So, you ended without the life you wanted and without the guy you wanted."

"But _you_ got what you wanted?" Cuddy retorted.

"Sure," Lucas said. "See, I don't expect perfection. That's why _I'm_ happy and _you're_ always striving."

If she'd ever regretted dumping Lucas in favour of a relationship that had had a sell-by date printed on it, that feeling vanished at his words. She'd almost forgotten that Lucas's teddy bear demeanour and his family man aura covered a vindictive streak a mile long.

She rose hurriedly. "I'll go see what's keeping Rachel," she said.

With Rachel as a shield she settled the last details with Lucas. "I'll pick her up Sunday evening, if that's okay with you."

"She can stay longer, if that's of any help to you," Lucas said.

Cuddy shook her head. She didn't want to be more beholden to Lucas than was strictly necessary (as he probably guessed), but all she said was, "No, she needs to go back to school on Monday at the latest. As it is, I have no idea how I'll sell this to her teachers."

"You can tell them that I have a very important medical check-up because of my disability," Rachel suggested.

Lucas guffawed.

Cuddy blinked. "I'll – think about it," she said. "Now, about catheterisation …"

His look of blank horror eased her heart. Payback time, Lucas Douglas! After a very long half-minute she released him from his anguish.

"She can do it herself, so you won't need to catheterise her." His relief was palpable. "But you need to make sure she does it regularly, every three to four hours. You'll have to remind her to do her bowel programme every morning. It takes her almost an hour, so plan in the time."

"Mo-om!" Rachel squirmed in embarrassment.

"Here, I've got it all written down." She pressed a file with care instructions that she'd compiled for her sister, the babysitter, etc., into Lucas's limp hands.

When Lucas's SUV pulled away from the curb, she heaved a sigh of relief. The longer Lucas had sat in her living room, the more reasons why this was a really crappy idea had occurred to her. Maybe Pete was using Lucas's professional services in some way, but that didn't mean that it was a good idea to entrust anything personal about Pete or Wilson to Lucas. A year ago he'd demolished Pete's property, ostensibly to protect her, but could Lucas separate between Pete the potential abuser and Greg House, the guy who'd supplanted him as Lisa Cuddy's boyfriend? To this day she didn't quite believe Lucas's declaration that he'd had no hand in Pete's subsequent arrest.

She could only hope that Rachel would be too excited by the babies and the dogs to talk about what was going on in the house in Germantown.


	14. DIY Chemo

Pete had to hand it to Wilson: the guy was an obstinate bastard. The chemo had hit hard and fast. Wilson had been puking his guts out the past two days, he'd lost all control over his bladder and sphincter, he was febrile, and he couldn't even move from the bed to the bathroom without support, but he resolutely refused to be transferred to a hospital.

Pete had hoped to get to the bottom of Wilson's dislike for hospitals once Wilson was weakened and his guard was down, but no luck so far. Wilson's reasoning remained as inchoate as it had been before the chemo, and Pete still had no idea why Wilson was opting for a suicidal strategy that was bound to get all his accomplices sent to jail for aiding and abetting him. Getting hold of Wilson's chemo and adjuvant medication without implicating Chase had cost a lot of time and effort.

"Try Cameron," Chase had suggested. "No one ever asks what Diagnostics needs meds for or why."

Allison Cameron? Pete hadn't forgotten her animosity towards him. Then again, she'd been very concerned about Wilson, touchingly concerned, in fact. He could work with that.

As Chase had predicted, she had agreed to meet him in a bar close to PPTH. More to the point, she had listened without blinking to his sob story of Wilson refusing treatment in hospital and how he now needed the medication for treatment at home.

She had looked at the list he'd slid over the table, her eyebrows rising. "I'm no oncologist, but this list makes no sense – unless you're getting additional meds from somewhere else. Are you?"

"No," he'd been able to answer honestly.

"This isn't enough for a normal course of six to eight cycles. How many cycles were you going to do?"

He had looked down at his hands. "One."

" _One_?"

"Wilson refuses to do more than one cycle, so …" He had trailed off, spreading his hands in a fatalistic gesture.

"You want to give him all of this in _one_ cycle?"

"Yep."

"This is murder!" she'd declared.

"It's what Wilson wants."

She had read through the list again, smiling knowingly. "And you've come to _me_ because Cuddy shot you down immediately."

"She's an administrator; she can't get at the meds without questions being asked," he'd explained.

"So it's okay for her to chicken out while I'm supposed to put my career on the line for your madness," she'd said.

"Not for my madness," he'd corrected. "For Wilson."

She'd put down the list and folded her hands above it, interlacing her fingers. "I get why Wilson might want this," she'd said, "but what I don't get is why _you_ are going along with it."

He had looked off into the distance, out of the window into the dark night. "It's his call, not mine," he'd said quietly.

"He helped you to do something abysmally stupid. Is there some ridiculous code of honour that obliges you to do the same for him?" she'd asked.

He'd remained silent.

"House, no code or obligation can force you to go against your beliefs and convictions. If Wilson demands that of you, you have the right to refuse."

"He didn't demand it. I offered," he'd said.

"You can't possibly believe this to be the best treatment option for Wilson!" she'd cried.

"I believe that I have no other choice if I'm to save my patient's life," he'd said, looking her straight in the eye.

She had held his gaze for a full minute before she'd risen, tucking the list into her purse. "Very well," she'd said. "You'll get your meds. I hope you know what you're doing, House."

 _So do I,_ he had agreed silently.

* * *

On the afternoon of the fourth day Wilson said, "I'm feeling better. I think the worst is over."

"Hmm," Pete said noncommittally, reaching for the blood-pressure cuff that he kept on the bedside table along with Wilson's stethoscope and a thermometer. Wilson's ability to fool himself was phenomenal; as an oncologist he should know better than to believe that he could make an assessment of his actual medical status based on how he felt. But then, there was an unbridgeable chasm between what people knew to be objective truths and what they chose to believe.

"Vitals are okay," he said once he'd checked blood pressure, heart rate and temperature. "Your temperature is down to 101.3."

"See?" Wilson said triumphantly.

 _Idiot!_ Pete thought. "I need some blood. Gimme your arm."

Wilson did so with an expression that conveyed that he considered this a waste of time. "Where are you going to get it analysed?" he asked.

"I'm sending it to a private lab," he said. He'd have preferred to supervise the panel himself, but leaving Wilson wasn't an option, even if he found a lab that was prepared to have him hover in the background while they ran their tests.

He'd just finished drawing blood when Tanja poked her head through the bedroom door. "There's a woman at the door. I think she wants you. Shall I bring her in?" she said in Russian.

"No, I'm coming," Pete said. "Make her wait outside."

"What did she say?" Wilson said.

"Pizza delivery service wants money," Pete lied. "Here, press hard for another minute."

He grabbed the blood samples and levered himself off the edge off the bed. "Don't try to go to the bathroom by yourself; you're still too weak," he added as he went out. Hopefully that would keep Wilson from roaming around the apartment until he'd gotten rid of the intruder.

As expected, it was Lisa who stood in the hallway looking pissed, while Tanja barred the door, gesticulating in an attempt to explain to Lisa that he was coming any moment. Pushing past Tanja, he grabbed Lisa's arm and pulled her away from the door of the apartment.

"What took you so long to get here?" he asked. He'd been beginning to doubt his own estimation of her: he'd expected her to keep her distance for two days at the most before caving and coming to help him, but she'd held out twice as long.

"I'm sorry that I mistook your plea for help for a kick out the door!" she said irritably. Then, with a backward glance at Tanja, who was still hovering curiously in the doorway, she hissed, "Who is she?"

"Tatiana, but she prefers to be called Tanja."

"A hooker?" Lisa asked.

Pete obligingly translated Lisa's whispered question into very audible Russian. "Hey, Tanja, she thinks you look like a prostitute."

Looking Lisa up and down, Tanja used an expression that Pete had never heard before – a welcome addition to his Russian vocabulary – the gist of which, however, was perfectly clear even if you understood no Russian at all.

"I think the PG-13 version of that is, 'People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones'," he said to Lisa. "She's a fully qualified nurse."

"A RN who can't speak English?"

Pete wrinkled his forehead and scrunched up his eyes as if he was thinking. "That might explain why she's having problems getting her qualification recognised here," he said, as though he'd only just realised that. "But it sure is the reason why she hasn't asked stupid questions about the advisability of DIY chemo."

"Clever," Lisa said. "Can we … go inside?" She looked around the entrance hall, which admittedly wasn't the best place for a heart-to-heart. He hoped to God that her garrulous neighbour wouldn't pass by.

"Wilson had better not see you," he said. "If it gets out that you're involved …"

"But I want to help," Lisa said.

He rolled his eyes in annoyance. "I didn't think that you'd come here for small talk." He thrust the blood samples at her. "Here, take these. I need a complete blood panel. I need the results fast, so do it yourself." She looked at him in dismay. Chances were that she hadn't done lab work since lab classes in medical school. "On second thought, breathe down your technicians' necks while they do it. Text the results. Oh, and start off with the white blood count: it's bound to tank sooner rather than later."

She nodded and turned to go.

"What was that about?" Wilson asked when he returned to the bedroom.

"The idiots sent the wrong pizza," Pete replied.

"Too bad," Wilson said. "I was _so_ looking forward to hurling prosciutto and anchovies."

* * *

He was watching a 'Star Trek: The Original Series' re-run with Wilson when Lisa texted him. He went to the bathroom when he felt his phone vibrate, looked at the screen and then phoned Lisa.

"The technicians ran the tests twice," Lisa said. "His ANC is still around 1000."

This was good news, although Wilson's white blood count would doubtless drop much lower over the next few days, with the risk of infections rising accordingly.

"Then what's the problem?" he asked testily. If he stayed in the bathroom much longer, Wilson would get suspicious.

"His AST and ALT levels are severely elevated. They're twenty times the UNL. Something is wrong with his liver."

Huh, that was quick. He'd thought he'd have more time to get everything organised, but it couldn't be helped. He'd have to move fast now. "Get the paperwork ready for his admission. Then get your ass back here."

"Has he agreed to be admitted?" she asked hopefully.

"Not yet," he muttered, "but I have a trump card." He disconnected the call.

Wilson didn't glance up when he came back. "What did the lab say?" he asked.

"The lab?" Pete parroted.

"You took my blood, you got a text message, you disappeared into the bathroom." Wilson enumerated wearily. "Just spit it out already."

"Your ANC is dropping," Pete said.

Wilson rolled his hand in a gesture demanding more information.

"It's around a thousand," Pete said, creasing his face into fake folds of worry.

Wilson looked relieved at the number and puzzled at Pete's demeanour. "That's – good!"

"It'll drop further," Pete said with his gravest facial expression.

"Yes, but it should remain manageable," Wilson said bracingly. "Even if it drops below five hundred, there's no need to worry. Did you get a broad-spectrum antibiotic?"

"Yep, meropenem," Pete said.

"Good! We'll start me on that when my ANC falls below 250. Can we watch TV now?"

"You're also dehydrated," Pete said, almost as an aside. "There were traces of ammonia in your blood. We should give you an infusion."

"Is that really necessary?"

"Alternately, you could stop hurling."

Wilson pretended to consider this. "And deny you the pleasure of watching me bow to the porcelain god? Not for the world!" He shifted uncomfortable. "Can we do it here? Then I can finish watching the episode."

Pete glanced at the clock. Lisa wouldn't be here for another hour or so. "Sure. We wouldn't want to curtail your enjoyment of guys in skin-tight tops and tights. We'll fix you up when the ads come on."

He went into his bedroom and dug around in the sock drawer, feeling through his socks. He found what he was looking for at the back of his drawer, a small bottle with a clear liquid stowed away in a pair of running socks. He took it back into the kitchen, where the supplies they'd needed for the chemo were all stacked, the perishables in the fridge and the rest in diverse kitchen cupboards.

"Can I help?" Tanja asked. She was seated at the kitchen table, knitting and reading a Russian magazine, neither of which occupation she seemed eager to interrupt.

Pete shook his head. "You'll never learn English if you keep reading Russian magazines," he remarked, hanging a bag of saline on the IV pole.

"Reading another language is strenuous," she said. "It takes all the fun out of reading."

He plunged a needle into the bottle from his sock drawer and drew the liquid into a syringe. "Consider English texts a puzzle," he suggested.

"I hate puzzles," she said. "Who cares about the answers?"

He could only roll his eyes. Her indifference to everything around her stumped him, but it did mean that she hadn't thought to question the strange goings-on so far. Doubtless she wouldn't ask why he was roofying his friend. She watched with incurious eyes as he peeled the label of the saline back half an inch and injected the liquid into the saline solution. After sticking the label back on, he tossed the syringe and the bottle into the trash.

"You can go now," he said to Tanja. Although it would be interesting to know how much she was prepared to put up with in the way of dubious medical practices before she opted out and called the police, he'd rather be safe than sorry. It would be better if she left before Wilson lost consciousness.

"Are you sure?" she asked perfunctorily, closing the magazine and letting the knitting slide into her bag.

He nodded. "Today's money is on the console table in the hall," he said.

She stuck her head into the living room to wave a cheerful goodbye to Wilson.

" _Do svidaniya_ ," Wilson said.

" _Do svidaniya_ , Dr Wilson," she answered, giving him the thumbs-up.

As Wilson rolled up his right sleeve to bare the access port that Pete had laid for the chemo he said, "I wonder where you learned Russian. Your father can hardly have been posted there."

"Probably not," Pete agreed. His Russian wasn't as good as his Japanese or his German and Tanja had corrected his pronunciation a few times, but it was good enough to get by with. "Perhaps I learned it to piss him off."

"Or to impress him," Wilson said as Pete fixed up the infusion and adjusted its speed.

"Why would I have wanted to do that?" If the therapy notes that Nolan had made during his first stay at Mayfield were anything to go by, he and his father hadn't seen eye to eye.

"Because it would have made your mother happy?" Wilson hazarded. "She can't have enjoyed being stuck in the cross-fire between the two guys whom she loved."

Pete huffed. "She didn't love him," he said with certainty.

Wilson looked at him incredulously. "Where'd you get that from? Nolan's notes? Nolan's notes were based on what _you_ told him, and as you know, everybody lies. Just because you _wished_ that your mother hated your father, doesn't mean that she did."

The corner of his mouth twitched up in victory. "Her deeds speak loud and clear: she married another guy two months after my father died."

"What!" Wilson's eyes bulged with surprise.

Pete scrutinised him with interest. "You didn't know?" Wilson didn't know much about Pete's early life, but he knew more than enough about the past twenty years and he'd been in touch with Blythe House off and on.

"No," Wilson said. He waggled his raised forefinger. "Are you sure this wasn't a hallucination?" At Pete's expression he continued hurriedly, "Or a tale you invented to mess with Nolan?"

"I didn't get this from Nolan's notes. I got this from my mother's solicitor." He paused, wondering how far he wanted to confide in Wilson. But Wilson was the only person who might be able to solve the Mystery of the Second Marriage. "My 'step-dad' died a few months after my mother, leaving practically all his property to _'his beloved wife's only son, Gregory House'_. Why would he leave everything to someone he didn't know?"

"Maybe he did know you," Wilson said.

"If he did, then he had even less reason to make me his heir," Pete said drily. "As a man of God he should have left his money to some charity instead of a rude, profligate atheist with a drug habit and criminal tendencies, a man to whom he wasn't even related."

"Man of God?" Wilson queried, a frown of concentration on his face.

"Someone called Thomas Bell."

"Oh," Wilson said.

"Does the name ring a bell?"

Wilson winced at the bad pun. "That's the name of the family friend whom you believed to be your biological father."

Pete considered this. "Seems he thought so too, I guess." He scratched his chin. "My mother must have been quite something."

"She was," Wilson said with feeling. "Now be quiet, or we'll miss the best part."

Pete returned his attention to the screen. "This doesn't make any sense," he muttered.

Wilson groaned and rubbed his face with his left hand. "Pete, we've had this discussion before, even though you don't remember it. TV shows aren't supposed to make sense; they're meant to entertain. Can't you just – enjoy this?"

"It defies logic," Pete said obstinately. "Why is Spock obeying Kirk's orders when he knows that Kirk is wrong?"

"It's known as 'loyalty'," Wilson said with the jaded air of someone explaining a basic truth for the umpteenth time. "And now you're going to tell me that it's not loyalty, but stupidity, to listen to your boss simply because he's your boss."

"It _is_ stupidity, but that's not what …"

"Okay, then we'll argue about whether it is stupidity to do what your friend wants when it's clearly going to get both of you into trouble, and undoubtedly you'll treat me to a special Enterprise version of 'friends don't let friends die dumb'." Wilson waved his hand tiredly. "House, you're not going to get me to consent to hospitalisation by nitpicking over a TV series. If you want to get me into a hospital, you'll have to …"

Breaking off, he twisted his hand to and fro a few times, trying to focus on it. Then he looked up at Pete, realisation dawning slowly. "You – drugged me!"

Pete leaned forward to catch him before he tipped off the couch. "Seems we've had _that_ conversation before, too," he muttered to himself as he settled Wilson into a more comfortable position with a cushion propping up his head before sitting back to watch the remainder of the episode.


	15. Trunk Tales

"Oh my God!" Lisa said when she walked into the living room. She rushed to kneel at Wilson's side, feeling the pulse at his neck. Then she looked up at Pete. "Can his liver be failing that fast?"

"Relax, he's not in a coma."

"Then?" Lisa looked at him suspiciously.

He grimaced, focusing on a spot on the carpet. "I drugged him so we can take him to hospital."

Considering that Lisa had been dead against the whole home treatment thing, he'd thought/hoped/deluded himself into believing that she'd jump at the chance of getting Wilson admitted to hospital. But no! Faced with an unconscious Wilson sprawled across the couch, Lisa reversed her priorities, showing a decidedly inconvenient regard for patient wishes.

"Weren't you all for respecting his wishes and going along with what he wanted?" she hissed. Her muted whisper was mildly amusing considering that not even an AC/DC concert could have roused Wilson at this point.

"I changed my mind."

"You mean you lied."

"Tomato, tomah-to," he said, shrugging her words aside.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I'm not doing this. I may not be happy about his decision, but I'm not going to go behind his back. That would be completely unethical."

He leaned into her personal space. "You wouldn't help him to get treated the way he wanted it, and you won't help me to get him the treatment he needs. You're denying him any sort of treatment at all. In what way is that ethical?"

She laughed incredulously. "Oh, no, you don't get to do this! I offered him my support in getting treatment according to medical guidelines. He chose not to take my offer."

"He'll die if we don't get him into a hospital!" Pete yelled.

Lisa closed her eyes, and for a moment he thought he'd brow-beaten her into acceptance. But then she straightened to her full five-foot-something. "Then he dies," she said. "He's unconscious at the moment, not incapacitated. When he comes round he'll be perfectly capable of making his own decisions."

He could manage somehow without her support; if necessary he'd get Wilson to hospital by himself. It would, however, be considerably easier and quicker if Wilson were admitted to her hospital under her aegis. So far, he hadn't given much thought to how he'd explain Wilson's present state – drugged and with enough cisplatin and doxorubicin in his body to treat a whole cancer ward – to the admitting physician, but although he didn't doubt that somehow he'd be able to bluff his way through any difficulties, he was painfully aware that he'd encounter a morass of disbelief that would slow him down. Valuable time would be lost, time that could be used to strengthen Wilson's immune system for the battle ahead.

So, he gave it a last try. "You haven't always been so fussed about disregarding patients' wishes," he said with a significant glance at his right thigh.

Lisa paled. "You bring this up _now_ , after twenty years?" she rasped, bafflement and hurt in her eyes. "All those years you never let on that you blamed me …. "

It was interesting that he'd never before brought up her disregard for his wishes during his infarction. He must have been a soft touch in those days if he hadn't milked a good grudge for all it was worth. Maybe he was looking a little too interested in her reaction, because her eyes narrowed to slits. "Wait! You can't recall the infarction," she realised belatedly.

Busted! "That's not the point," he said.

"You're using something you can't remember in order to manipulate me," she said with a hint of indignation.

There was a definite need to get the conversation back on track before Lisa made it about herself. "Then, you went against my express and stated wishes even though there was a good chance that I'd survive."

"Hardly," she snorted.

He ignored her, gesturing towards Wilson instead. "He stands no chance whatsoever unless we go against his wishes. If you could do it then, you can do it now."

She stood her ground. "Maybe I've learned from the past," she said quietly.

He threw his head back impatiently. "Woman, look at me! Do I look unhappy to you? Miserable to be alive? Discontented with my lot? Hankering for a non-existent crown in a non-existent afterlife?"

"Wilson _will_ be miserable, _and_ angry," she said.

"But he'll be _alive_ ," he shouted. "You're not worried about disregarding his wishes; you're worried that he'll be angry with you. You're worried for yourself. You're making this about yourself, not about him. If _he_ were in the centre of your considerations, his anger wouldn't matter to you as long as he was alive."

Lisa paled, but she didn't yield. "And what if he doesn't live? What if he dies in the hospital?"

"Then _where_ he dies won't make any difference," he said.

"Wilson is of a different opinion."

He looked down at her in silence. She wasn't going to help, that much was clear. He'd have to get Wilson to some other hospital without her assistance. He turned round to contemplate Wilson; getting him to a hospital on his own would be a physical challenge. Perhaps he should phone Tanja and ask her to come back. Secrecy wasn't of primary importance anymore, because without Lisa's help he didn't stand a chance of weaseling his way out of this. On the other hand it would be awkward if Tanja got into trouble.

"Will you visit me in prison?" he said absently as he considered the pros and cons of calling an ambulance.

"Visit you where?"

He swung round to stare at Lisa, baffled.

"Jail, hoosegow, slammer, Club Fed," he enumerated, wondering whether there was an acoustic problem here. "Wasn't that what you predicted when we told you about our plan?"

"Well, yes, but I thought you'd come up with some way of, I don't know, covering your tracks," she said, waving her hands in a vague manner.

"You tell me how to explain a dead guy in my apartment who's pumped full of steroids, cisplatin and octreotide, and has traces of a sedative in his blood," he said with heavy sarcasm. "I'm a convicted felon, so this time I won't get probation."

She didn't bite her lip, she literally chewed on it. "Okay," she finally said, pulling out her phone, "I'll get a crew to pick him up."

Trust Lisa to do the right thing for the wrong reason: she wouldn't betray Wilson to save his life, but she'd do it to keep him, Pete, out of prison. He grabbed her hand before she make the call.

"Don't be an idiot!" he barked. "We'll take him in ourselves. That's unless you want to be implicated by having everyone know that he got himself into this condition right under your nose."

She hesitantly let the hand with the cell phone drop. "So what's our story?" she asked.

"He pretended he was going away for a few days to visit his family, but locked himself in instead and administered the chemo himself," Pete said. "I came back unexpectedly from a trip today, only to find him barely conscious. We'll say he lost consciousness on the way to the hospital. And you – you knew nothing."

Lisa's eyebrows rose. "No one's going to believe that he got through the chemo by himself."

Pete grinned mirthlessly. "Let them believe what they like; as long as they can't prove anything, it won't matter."

He'd asked Chase to organise a wheelchair, ostensibly to help Wilson get around the apartment during the chemo, but in fact for the purpose of getting him out of it once he was unconscious, and never had Pete been more grateful for his foresight. It took their united effort to get Wilson into the wheelchair; getting him from the wheelchair into the car proved to be a labour worthy of Sisyphus. Lisa was strong for someone her size, but Wilson, drugged as he was, had the muscle tension of a jelly fish. Lisa simply wasn't strong enough to haul him onto the back seat of her car, while he, Pete, couldn't keep his balance while manoeuvring the equivalent of a calf through what suddenly seemed a ridiculously small aperture.

"Let's put him in the trunk," he finally said. Lisa's car was a hatchback with the ample cargo space that was required to accommodate Rachel's wheelchair; it would work just fine for Wilson.

Lisa looked disconcerted for a moment, but then she pushed the wheelchair round to the back of her car, saying, "Let's hope no one sees us."

He crawled into the cargo space and turned around, crouching. "Turn the wheelchair so I can pull him over the back," he instructed.

When Lisa had done so, he threaded his hands under Wilson's armpits, clasping them in front of his chest. "Hang onto the wheelchair!"

Lisa held onto the footrests causing the wheelchair to tip backwards, which made it easier for him to slide Wilson from the chair into the cargo space. He got the torso in, but then he ran out of backing space, and Wilson's legs and feet still hung out. Letting go of the wheelchair, Lisa took hold of Wilson's feet and swung them sideways into the trunk. She paused, looking at the inelegant way he was folded into the trunk, then she said, "I'll get a pillow and some blankets."

With that she was gone. Pete adjusted Wilson's head and shoulders so that he wasn't quite so twisted, and then he climbed out to fold the wheelchair. It wouldn't fit in the trunk with Wilson, so he placed it in front of the passenger seat instead.

Lisa came back with a whole arsenal of blankets and bolsters. "You'd better ride in the back with him," she said, "or he'll roll all over the place."

He'd figured that too, so he helped her jam Wilson in as tightly as possible, reserving a large cushion for himself.

Riding in the back unable to see where they were going was more unnerving than he would have thought possible. "Don't keep stopping, woman!" he groused when the car slowed down for what seemed the hundredth time for no apparent reason.

"You want me to get stopped by the cops for running a red light?" Lisa asked.

No, he didn't. But surely they could go faster that what she was driving!

"We're almost there," Lisa said in soothing tones that undoubtedly worked wonders on her sprog on long car rides, but left him with a barely repressible desire to climb over the seats, tug her out of the driver's seat and push down on the accelerator. Nevertheless, a few minutes later they drew into the parking lot at Lisa's hospital. He looked around for cameras; luckily for them (and for anyone wanting to perpetrate crimes) security cameras were few and far between.

"That ill-lit spot over there," he said, pointing to the far corner.

Lisa pulled into the parking spot. Silently they got into position to get Wilson out again, now with Lisa crouched in the car and Pete positioned behind the wheelchair. This time round they were a lot faster; getting him out was easier than getting him in, and they worked as a team now.

Lisa locked the car, squared her shoulders and said, "Let's go!" She strode ahead while he followed, pushing Wilson.

The next half hour was a blur. Lisa, acting as if appearing at the hospital with a case of acute medication poisoning was the most normal thing in the world, waved an irritated hand at the admission desk, barked orders into her phone and at any nurse unwise enough to ask questions, and led the way to the ICU.

"His friend found him barely conscious," she said to the doctor on duty as two orderlies sprang forward to transfer Wilson into a hospital bed. "He passed out when we got him out of the car. …. No, I don't know what … Pete, do you know what Wilson took?"

It was as if they'd rehearsed it before. He pulled out the medication plan that Wilson and he had set up and handed it over. "Found it next to the bed," he said.

He stepped back and watched as the unit kicked into action, only half paying attention to the resident who was trying to get a patient history from him. Nurses bustled around hooking Wilson up to monitors, the physician on duty took Wilson's vitals, a resident paged oncology, another hovered in the background trying to look competent, and Lisa paced around, making one phone call after another.

"They're getting a clean room ready just in case his white blood cell count tanks," she said to him between calls. "Pearson from Oncology will be here in a moment. Is there anything else we need?"

"A haematologist would be neat," he said. "And maybe someone from gastro with a speciality in liver disease." She nodded and turned away.

"Try to lie low," she said. "Why don't you go to the cafeteria and get yourself a bite to eat?"

Predictably, the cafeteria was closed and he didn't have any change for the vending machines, but a little gift shop was open, so he helped himself to some candy bars and a ball under cover of browsing through the magazines there. Half an hour later he was back at the ICU.

There, three doctors in white lab coats huddled around Lisa, arguing heatedly. They looked perplexed while Lisa alternated between rocking on her heels and pulling a hand through her already dishevelled hair. He could almost hear her debating the advisability of introducing him to her staff, but after a moment's hesitation she waved at him to come over.

"Guys, this is … Pete, Dr Wilson's best friend. If anyone knows what Wilson would want, it's him," she said. "Pete, this is Leo Kaminsky, our haematologist, Annie Liu from our ICU team, and Bill Pearson, our head of Oncology."

He nodded stiffly while Lisa's minions looked politely puzzled.

"Pete has experience in – interdisciplinary approaches to medicine," Lisa added.

"You're a doctor?" Liu asked.

He nodded.

"There's nothing interdisciplinary about this," Pearson said. "We need to get him off all medication, otherwise his liver will fail. We can keep him alive without an immune system, but not without a liver."

Kaminsky looked unhappy. He turned to Pete. "Any idea why he took this crazy cocktail?"

Pete shrugged. "To shrink his tumour, maybe?"

Annie Liu snorted. "Look," she said, "I need a decision. _Any_ decision. We can discuss Dr Wilson's state of mind and medical judgment afterwards."

Kaminsky looked even unhappier, if that was possible. "There's no sense in agreeing on something that Dr Wilson will overturn once he comes round and can make his own decisions again. We should try to figure out what he'd want and implement that, regardless of whether that reflects our medical opinion," he said. "Judging by what he took, his liver wasn't his primary concern, so we should …"

"Neither was his immune system, as far as I can make out," Pearson interrupted. "If we judge his wishes based on what he took, we should get out a gun and shoot him!"

"Bill, that was incredibly insensitive," Lisa said. "If you can't say anything constructive, keep your mouth shut."

Pearson stared at her. Liu applauded. "Thank you," Kaminsky said, assuming that Lisa was taking his side.

Lisa rounded on him. "And you, stop prevaricating. We need a medical opinion, not a set of assumptions about what Wilson would or wouldn't do."

"Then why are we including the patient's family in the process?" Liu asked reasonably.

Lisa glanced at Pete. "Because he's a good doctor."

Liu folded her arms. "So are we."

"I'm a _better_ doctor than you," Pete said, sticking his tongue out. Liu looked expectantly at Lisa, probably hoping that she'd give him a dressing-down like she'd done Pearson.

Lisa sighed. "He's right, so listen to him, _please_."

Three pairs of eyes stared at him with hostility. He preened himself until Lisa stuck her elbow in his side.

"Up the meropenem," he said. "We need to stabilise his immune system before that tanks too."

Liu looked at Kaminsky. When he nodded she turned to the ICU nurses.

"What kind of a freaking quack are you?" Pearson growled. He turned on Lisa. "If you listen to him, I wash my hands …"

"As long as you're working at this hospital, you'll accept my decisions!" Lisa snapped. They locked eyes until Pearson dropped his. "This is an intensive care decision anyway, not an oncological one," Lisa added in a more conciliatory tone. "We're not poaching on your territory, Bill."

"Whatever! I guess I can leave then." Pearson stomped off, huffing.

"Great," Lisa said. She shook her head as though clearing thoughts of Pearson's hissy fit out of it. "I'll go and get Wilson officially admitted. Do you have any papers of his?" When he'd handed her Wilson's driver's licence she left.

He was sitting on the floor bouncing his ball against the opposite wall when Dr Liu marched up to him with a clipboard.

"The blood test results have come in."

Catching the ball, he rose. "Can I see?"

"Sorry, you don't have privileges here. But you should know that his liver is failing."

"Expected that," he said briefly. "How much longer?"

She ignored his question. "When we couldn't get him to come round, I also ordered a tox screen. He has vast quantities of tranquillisers in his blood. Would you care to explain that?"

"Tranquillisers?" he echoed. "I haven't a clue. Maybe he was feeling anxious, couldn't sleep …"

"Look, Dr …," she paused, waiting for him to supply his last name. When he didn't respond, her lips tightened, but she continued, "Sooner or later Dr Wilson will regain consciousness. If he doesn't want to stay here, we can't force him to do so. Maybe we can shorten this charade and liberate valuable hospital resources for patients who actually want them …"

"Look, Dr Lulu," he said, mimicking her as he loomed over her. "For all you know, the tranquillisers were a suicide attempt, in which case he'll have to stay here on psych watch."

"But he doesn't have to consent to any form of medical treatment while he's on psych watch," she countered.

"Didn't your tox screen tell you that he also has vast amounts of prednisone, cisplatin and octreotide in his blood? He's not refusing medical treatment!"

"What if he says he didn't take the tranquillisers? Then we can't put him on psych watch, and we'll have to let him leave."

"Everybody lies, especially people who want to commit suicide. You're gonna believe him just because he says he didn't take them?"

She rolled her eyes and flicked her long, dark hair back. "Look," she said – it seemed to be one of her favourite words. "Seventy-two hours on psych watch, and then what? He isn't going to change his mind about staying in a hospital just because we babysit him for a few days." She stared at him challengingly. "If I'm to keep him here against his will, I need something to work with."

"Acute liver failure can cause hepatic encephalopathy," he said meaningfully.

She looked at the clipboard, her mouth working in concentration. He squinted too, but he couldn't read the numbers from that distance and angle.

"Okay, I guess we can posit stage II encephalopathy with confusion and personality change," she finally said. "That would suffice to keep him here without his consent."

"Great!" he said with false cheer. "Now that we've settled that, maybe we – meaning you – can go back to saving my friend's life."

Slapping the clipboard against her thigh in irritation (most likely she wanted to hit him over the head with it), Liu went back into the ICU. He slumped down on a bench, tossing his ball into the air and catching it. A moment later, a hand plucked the ball out of the air before he could catch it.

"What was that about?" Lisa asked.

"Nothing," he mumbled. "Your staff sucks."

"Sure," Lisa agreed amicably. "You're hungry, I'm tired, and Wilson will be out for the next few hours. Let's go home."


	16. Waiting

Pete was monosyllabic on the drive back, and she didn't push him even though she'd have liked to have had his assessment of the current situation. Back at the house he turned towards the door of the first-floor apartment that he and Wilson shared while she proceeded down the hall to call the elevator, throwing a casual 'good night' over her shoulder, to which she got no response. When the elevator arrived Pete was still standing in front of the door fiddling with the lock.

Cuddy hesitated. "Do you want something to eat?" she asked.

He was silent for so long that she wondered whether he'd heard her, but finally he turned around and followed her into the elevator.

"Who's Wilson's medical proxy?" he asked abruptly.

"I am," she said. "He made me his proxy when he was admitted to Mayfield. You were his proxy while you were at PPTH. I don't think he bothered to change the paperwork until Mayfield, where Nolan made him name someone who could be contacted in case of need."

"Why not someone from his family?"

The question was so reasonable that she wondered why she'd never asked it herself. Digging through her purse for her keys she said, "I have no idea. Maybe he feels that his parents are too old. His younger brother Danny doesn't qualify anyway."

She opened her door and went in, putting her purse on the console table near the door. "You know," she said slowly, "I don't think I've ever talked to anyone from Wilson's family. Other than Danny, I don't even know where they live or what they do."

The astonishing thing was that she'd never noticed this omission. She knew a lot more about House's family than about Wilson's, even though she had always considered House the more reserved of the two. She'd talked to Blythe House a few times on the phone, after the infarction and after John House's death. But Wilson? She hadn't known him well when he married Bonnie, and he had eloped with his third wife Julie (or was it Julia?), so she had never had the opportunity to meet his family at one of his weddings. Nor could she recall Wilson ever talking about his parents or his other brother; he'd never mentioned going to visit them and they'd been conspicuously absent during his stay at Mayfield. Of course, it was possible that he had kept his breakdown from them.

"I've talked to them," Pete volunteered.

She did a double take. "You have? When? Why?"

He shrugged. "Thought it might be a good idea to warn them about Wilson's condition. It turned out that Wilson hadn't done so."

That Wilson hadn't informed his family didn't surprise her; that Pete considered it his duty to do so certainly did. He'd never struck her as the kind of person who'd take the burden of informing family of incipient bereavement on himself if he could avoid it – which he could easily have done by passing the task on to her. But he wore his 'closed' expression, so she couldn't hope to explore his motives. "What did they say when you talked to them?" she asked instead, switching on the lights as she went through the apartment.

"That they were sorry to hear that James was unwell," he answered in a toneless voice, trailing behind her into the living room.

"That was all?" she asked unbelievingly.

"More or less."

"Didn't they understand what you told them?"

"They did: they indicated that it was selfish of Wilson to die as long as Danny still needed his attention."

She stood in the middle of the room, nonplussed. "But Wilson is so caring himself; how can his family be so indifferent towards him?"

"You're getting cause and effect mixed up," he said clinically. "Wilson is caring because the niche 'caring son and brother' wasn't occupied by anyone else. … What happened to the grub you promised?"

"Let me check what I've got in the fridge," she said, though she had little hope that its contents would prove a source of culinary inspiration. When she was alone with Rachel she didn't need to store much food. Rachel, sitting in a wheelchair all day, didn't burn many calories and she herself had to maintain strict discipline if she was to keep her BMI within the desired range. It was as she had feared: there was some left-over lentil stew, ingredients for the vegetable lasagna she'd meant to make this evening before her plans had been overturned, cheese, and some eggs. There was no meat whatsoever. She could forget about offering Pete the lentil stew – it was admittedly not her most inspired creation and he would doubtless consider it unfit for human consumption – and the lasagna would take too long. Mac'n'cheese was a possibility, she supposed, but her stomach rebelled at the thought. Cheese omelette, she decided.

When she returned to the living room with two plates, the television was on although the room was dark. Pete's sneakers, perched on the armrest of her couch, caught her eye. Annoyed, she rounded the couch and slapped the plates onto the coffee table, turning to Pete to make him remove his feet from her furniture.

Pete's head was tipped back and sideways, his mouth slightly open, the wrinkles on his forehead smoothed out. His breathing was deep and even. Cuddy's annoyance faded at the sight; he probably hadn't slept much these past few days. She sat down in the armchair next to the couch and ate her omelette in the flickering light from the television screen, wondering all the while whether she should wake him. The couch was too short for his lanky body; he'd sleep better on a firm mattress and she didn't really want him in her apartment for the night, but if she woke him, chances were that his insomnia would keep him up the rest of the night.

She rose and took his cold food back into the kitchen, after which she got a blanket and a pillow from the guest room. It seemed oddly intimate for her to drape the blanket over him and tuck the pillow carefully under his neck. She'd never had the sort of friend who'd crash on her couch without as much as a by-your-leave, not even at college. Few of her dates ever got to spend the night, and each time it had been a carefully pondered decision, not a spur-of-the-moment act of sentimentality. Nor was she a 'buddy' who provided shelter for the wasted and stranded.

'Inappropriate', that was the word she was looking for. It wasn't the intimacy that bothered her – she'd had sex with this man any number of times and in any number of places –, it was the nature of the nurture that she was providing that bothered her. Looking out for Pete, providing him with a couch and an open ear was _Wilson's_ job, not hers.

With a sudden sinking feeling she realised that Wilson might never come back to keep an eye on Pete. What would happen then? Would Pete expect her to take Wilson's place, as she was doing now? She rather thought not: Pete was as wary of encroaching on her hospitality as she was of extending it. He'd probably disappear from her life as though this brief interlude had never taken place, while she and Rachel would return to their everyday routine.

Except that things wouldn't be the way they were before. Rachel was too old to forget Wilson or Pete the way she'd conveniently forgotten both Lucas and House five years ago. She, for her part, had let go of the resentment that had tided her over the time after the car crash. She didn't hate Pete, hate _House_ , enough now to be indifferent to his fate.

He'd do fine, she told herself. He had spent over three years in England without Wilson, not even knowing of his existence, and he didn't have twenty years' worth of memories and regrets to mull over. He should do better without Wilson than she and Rachel would.

But House had never coped well with losing the people around him, even when they'd only been loosely connected to him, and there was no reason to suppose that his new persona would adapt any better to loss than his old one had.

* * *

The dull grey light of dawn filtered through the curtains when she woke, groggy and disoriented, wondering what had woken her. It took a few moments till she remembered that it couldn't be Rachel, but she was sure it had been some sound in the apartment. It was only when she heard the front door click shut that she remembered Pete. A few minutes later she heard a motorcycle revving in the street.

She sat up and looked at her alarm clock: 5 a.m. She'd only slept for four hours. She could have done with a few more hours of sleep, but she didn't want Pete at the hospital by himself, exasperating her staff and drawing unnecessary attention to himself, so she resigned herself to the inevitable and headed for the shower, timing herself rigorously so that fatigue wouldn't slow her down. Five minutes for a shower, two to towel down, three minutes to get dressed. She'd get coffee and something to eat at the hospital. Four more minutes to brush her hair and teeth. She threw her make-up into her purse; she'd do it in the car at a red light. Her hair would have to air-dry. When her mind conjured up an image of herself with frizzy locks and sloppy make-up, she resolutely banished it and concentrated on the matter at hand. A bare fifteen minutes after she'd gotten up she slipped into a pair of heels, grabbed her coat and purse, and left her apartment.

She got to the ICU in the calm that marked the approaching end of a shift. Marching purposefully towards Wilson's room, she scanned the corridors for a glimpse of Pete. Finally she spotted him in a far corner, leaning against the wall, his eyes fixed on the glass wall that separated the rooms from the corridor, one of his hands rhythmically rubbing his right thigh. When he noticed her, he straightened and stuck his hands into his pockets.

"He's still out," he said, nodding towards Wilson's bed. She turned to look at Wilson, but the corridor was well lit while the light in the room was dimmed, so all she could see was her own reflection and Pete's in the glass pane of the wall. Short of pressing her nose against the pane there was no way of looking in on Wilson. She looked at Pete's reflection instead. He hadn't shaved in a few days, he clearly hadn't showered before coming here, and the shadows under his eyes bespoke of too little sleep – it was an eerily familiar picture he presented, one of days long gone by. She wasn't sure she wanted to remember them.

Dr Liu and two nurses came from the nurses' station. Liu stopped short when she saw them.

"I'm going to try to wake him now," Liu said more to Pete than to her. Lisa wondered whether she was imagining a note of challenge in Liu's voice. Pete gave her a little nod.

"The blood work indicates that there's no need for a clean-room – as yet. But you should disinfect your hands and wear masks. You can come in as soon as I'm satisfied that he's stable." Dr Liu gestured towards the dispensers along the wall. She observed Pete as he scrubbed down his hands, giving a nod of approval when she saw that he did so with professional thoroughness. Then she went into Wilson's room followed by the nurses, and as the lights went on, Cuddy got her first glimpse of Wilson. He was pale with sunken cheeks, the streaks of grey in his hair accentuated by the harsh white light. She couldn't recall whether he'd looked that bad the night before. Maybe he had, but in the rush and hurry it hadn't registered.

Cuddy was surprised that Pete hadn't protested at having to wait until summoned and she was even more so when Pete waited patiently while Liu tried to rouse Wilson. He was unresponsive at first, looking around blearily before drifting off to sleep again, but Liu was not to be put off.

"Maybe she should just let him sleep," Cuddy muttered. "It's not like he's missing anything."

"Her shift ends in half an hour," Pete said, "and the tranquilliser will have worn off by now."

Cuddy rolled her eyes at him. "She isn't the only doctor in the ICU. Whoever replaces her on the day shift is as capable of taking Wilson's vitals as she is. This isn't exactly rocket science."

Pete plucked his lip thoughtfully. "She's smelled a rat and now she wants to know. She wants to be there when Wilson comes round and starts talking."

"You think she's neglecting Wilson's welfare in order to satisfy her own curiosity?"

Pete shrugged indifferently. "Patient welfare is overrated. Besides, how does she know we aren't trying to kill Wilson? If she wants an accurate patient history, she has to get to him before we have the chance to distort the truth."

"We wouldn't …"

"Do you want to land in the hoosegow?" He looked down at her, one eyebrow a-quirk. "I thought not."

No, she didn't. She had a daughter who needed her, and much as she liked Wilson, she wasn't prepared to take the rap for his insane obstinacy.

Pete seemed to have read her thoughts. "People lie. They justify their lies, especially to themselves, but they lie. You're telling yourself that Rachel needs you."

"And what are you telling yourself?"

"That it won't help Wilson for other people to know that he didn't want to be here. It could kill him, to be exact, and prison will probably kill me. So, by lying I'll be saving lives." He grinned at her smugly.

"Then let's go save some lives!" Cuddy said, taking hold of his arm and pulling him into Wilson's room.

"Almost done here," Liu said, giving them an irritated glance when they came in.

Wilson blinked at them as though trying to place them, his gaze coming to rest on Pete. Then, slowly, a frown deepened on his forehead. "You drugged me!" he croaked.

The nurses' heads swivelled round to Pete. Liu put down the syringe that she'd been getting ready to draw blood with and turned to Cuddy, lifting one eyebrow very pointedly. "Could you get him out of here, please? His presence seems to be upsetting my patient."

"You …," Wilson began again.

Cuddy grasped Pete's wrist tightly and dragged him right out of Wilson's room again. Once outside, she poked him in the chest, making him retreat against the far wall. "What the fuck?" she said through clenched teeth. "Wilson _knows_ you drugged him?"

"He's not an idiot."

" _You're_ an idiot! I figured he'd insist he didn't want to be here, but I didn't dream that he'd accuse us of a major crime in front of my staff!" She turned away from him to face the room, dragging a weary hand through her hair. Liu, calm and collected as though Wilson had said nothing out of the ordinary, was handing the blood she'd just drawn to one of the nurses. Then she came out of the room, pulling off her gloves and balling them, and marched straight towards them.

Cuddy drew herself up defensively. "Dr Wilson must be confused," she said.

Liu ignored her. "You saved his life," she said to Pete, "but if you want to save your ass, you'd better stay away from him. The moment you were gone, he insisted he'd been joking." Turning to Cuddy she said, "The blood panel we made on admitting him showed considerable amounts of tranquillisers. I've noted it as a possible suicide attempt. I've also noted that Pete's presence agitates him."

That meant that Pete wouldn't be allowed to visit Wilson. She glanced over at him to see how he took the news, but his face was expressionless.

"Was that really necessary?" Cuddy asked. "I'm sure that once he has accepted that he's here to stay …"

"Dr Wilson specifically requested it," Liu said. "He said, and I quote here, 'If that sonofabitch comes near me, I'll rip out my IV and strangle him with the tubing!' I'm sorry."

"S'okay. I wasn't planning on being around, anyway. I have … things to organise," Pete said with a bright smile that sat oddly on his lips.

"You can go in for a few minutes," Liu said to Cuddy. "The results from this blood panel should be back by noon." She nodded to both of them and went over to the nurses' desk.

The moment she was out of earshot Cuddy turned on Pete again. " _She_ also knows that you drugged Wilson? Did you tweet it or something?" She was used to him not letting her in on whatever scheme he was hatching, but she did need a minimum of information if she was to weather this crisis without losing her job and her sanity. This wasn't PPTH, where people had been used to his methods and had accepted her authority. Here she wouldn't put it past her staff to refuse to obey her orders or to file a complaint directly with the board, bypassing her.

"Wilson knows. Liu knows. Lisa doesn't know!" Pete intoned.

This was a cultural reference that she could actually place, and it didn't improve her mood to be compared to the brainless hulk in the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_. "Letting my staff know that you committed a felony gets you where, exactly?" she snapped.

"It's called a compromise; you're a big fan of those, aren't you?" he mocked.

Her heart sank. His idea of a compromise tended to involve blackmail or coercion. "Do I even want to know?" she muttered.

He scratched his eyebrow. "She wanted to know whether he tried to off himself. I wanted her assurance that she wouldn't discharge him AMA."

Cuddy was caught between despair and _schadenfreude_. "She can't release him AMA," she said. "We have a policy that patients who aren't stable may only be discharged AMA if they can produce someone who'll agree to provide basic care. Wilson's only got us, so he can't leave." She paused for effect. "You got blindsided by a mere fellow."

His jaw worked. "Oh, fuck!" was all he said, but she could see he was amused.

"Why don't you get some sleep? I'll call you if anything changes."

Wilson was asleep again when she went back into his room, so she sat down at his bedside, wondering what Pete had slipped him and how much. She phoned her assistant and got him to bring her some files, and then she settled down to work in the waiting area, only getting up every now and then to check on Wilson. Wilson slept and slept and slept. That wouldn't bother her if Pete hadn't told her that the sedative he'd slipped Wilson must have worn off by now. It could be an after-effect of the sedative (although Pete believed it should have worn off) or even of the chemotherapy, but –- in view of Wilson's AST/ALT ratio there was a more disturbing explanation.

When the results of the morning blood test came in, the doctor on duty handed it wordlessly to Cuddy and paged Gastroenterology. Half an hour later a young man with an uncanny resemblance to a vulture came in. Cuddy searched for a name, but her tired brain came up with nothing. He tutted when he saw the results of the latest blood panel and then sat down next to the bed.

"Dr Wilson?"

Wilson opened his eyes wearily.

"My name is Ahmad Hamadi. I'm from Gastroenterology with a specialty in liver disease."

"Oh. What happened to Merrick?"

Cuddy froze. Merrick was the name of PPTH's top liver specialist.

"Dr Wilson, do you know where you are?" Hamadi asked.

"In the hospital?"

"Which hospital?"

Wilson's eyes roamed around the room. "This … isn't PPTH, is it? Then it must be …. " He fell silent, frowning.

Hamadi raised him to a sitting position. "Stretch out your arms, please."

Wilson did so, looking uneasy. Hamadi bent his hands back at the wrists and then let go. Wilson's hands flapped helplessly in small jerks.

"Oh my goodness," Cuddy murmured. "Asterixis?"

"Yes," Hamadi confirmed. "That, the drowsiness and his confusion indicate that he has encephalopathy. I'm putting him on mannitol to relieve intracranial pressure. How long has he been showing signs of confusion?"

"I haven't a clue. He's been sleeping all morning," Cuddy said helplessly.

"According to the patient history first symptoms presented about twenty-four hours ago?"

Cuddy nodded. Pete was an ass, but he wouldn't have lied about essentials, and this was an essential.

"His family should be informed," Hamadi said.

"Danny," Wilson murmured. "Don't tell Danny. He'll worry. … Shouldn't worry Danny."

Cuddy leaned forward to clasp his arm. "We won't tell Danny. I'll let Pete know, shall I?" Pete was in contact with Wilson's family; he'd know who to inform.

"Pete?" Wilson asked, perplexed.

"House," Cuddy said, seriously concerned now.

A look of irritation crossed Wilson's face. "He drugged me," he said. "And then he took my pants and gave my speech!"

Cuddy risked a glance at Hamadi, but he appeared to set little store by what Wilson had just said. He was studying the patient history in Wilson's file. "I don't know what to say to this," he finally said. "It's clear what caused this, but such a rapid decline is unusual. Wait, there's a history of alcohol abuse. That isn't good, Dr Cuddy, that isn't good!"

She was fully aware of it.

Hamadi rubbed a finger along his beak-like nose. "Dr Cuddy, normally I'd recommend a transfer to a transplant centre, but with that history, there's no use in transferring him. We'll just have to manage his condition as best we can."

When Hamadi left she phoned Pete. "Where are you?" There were odd sounds in the background that she couldn't place – whizzing and fizzing noises and the occasional crash.

"Paediatrics," he said. "It's great: they have a Playstation 4 here, and the kids aren't allowed to play for an hour after lunch, so it's all mine."

"Did you get the text I sent you with Wilson's latest blood panel results?"

"Yeah. Shit, failed the level. Keep it short – the kids will be here any moment, and they're irritating as hell."

"Pete, Wilson's got asterixis; he's confused and almost incoherent! We shouldn't have put him on meropenem. I'll have him taken off the medication so his liver can recover."

Pete didn't seem bothered. "Keep the medication and put him on the transplant list," he said. "What with his boozing and gifting of body parts, he has a weakened liver, and the chemo was strong enough to beat the crap out of a whole healthy one. We can't save it. We salvage what we can, and that's his immune system. We replace the rest."

"Almost fifty years old, a history of alcohol abuse, and a carcinoma that's possibly inoperable," Cuddy said desperately. "He won't even _get_ on the waiting list."

The noise in the background ceased abruptly. "When I contacted his family I mentioned the possibility of liver failure," Pete said. "Maybe one of them is a match; then we'll have a live donor."

She hadn't thought of his family – she should have after Pete's questions last night. So _that_ was why he'd contacted them: he had anticipated that Wilson's liver would cave. "Should I have him transferred? Do you think you can get his family to donate? Because if not, he's probably better off if we don't move him, because we risk infections if we do."

"No, don't move him. If he needs a transplant, we'll do it here."

"Here? Pete, this isn't a transplant centre! My staff have never …."

"They won't have to: I'll get Chase and a team from PPTH," Pete cut her off. "You organise the necessary paperwork." He disconnected the call before she could protest any further and ignored all her attempts to call him again. She finally gave up, hoping that he knew what he was doing.

The next hours were unpleasant. Having kept busy till now, she hadn't had time to absorb or ponder the past events or think overly much about the future, but as the minutes and hours passed with Wilson mostly asleep and barely coherent when he was awake, there wasn't much she could do at his bedside except worry. She did worry now, as she hadn't worried the night before. Even though Wilson had already been unconscious when she'd helped Pete bring him to the hospital she'd assumed that Pete had everything under control. That Pete wouldn't risk Wilson dying of his stupid cancer treatment. Well she'd been wrong.

Wilson and Pete had gone all in.


	17. PPTH and Other Problems

"Why are you here?" Taub asked.

Pete looked around the lobby of PPTH: the _kitsch_ masquerading as art, the plastic shrubs, the staff at the front desk pretending to be busy.

"It's like coming home," he said with false pathos, leaning over to take a sucker from the jar on the desk. The nurse on duty frowned at him. Tearing the wrapper off the sucker, Pete dropped it provocatively on the shiny tiles next to him, stuck the sucker in his mouth, and waggled the stick at the nurse by moving his jaw.

"Sure," Taub said equably. "What do you want?" Without waiting to see whether Pete was following him he strode towards the elevators.

"A new liver," Pete said around his sucker as he limped after Taub. He must have wrenched something in his remaining leg while lugging Wilson in and out of the car.

Taub stopped short, turned around and peered into Pete's eyes. "No signs of jaundice. Is there a problem with your liver values?" he asked in a neutral voice.

"Not for me, for Wilson," Pete elucidated.

"That – will be difficult," Taub said. "He only qualifies if he's been sober for the past six months."

Pete took the sucker out. It seemed that he didn't like the green ones. Perhaps the red ones were better. "Define 'sober'," he said, sticking the sucker into the plastic blossom of one of the potted plants and tipping his head to consider the effect.

"I amend my earlier statement; it'll be impossible," Taub said with no inflection.

"And I'll expand on mine: I don't want you to _supply_ a liver, I want you to put the liver that _I_ will supply into a liver-shaped hole in Wilson's body," Pete said, scanning the lobby for intelligent life forms.

Taub's expression grew more dour, as far as that was possible. "You realise that a liver isn't a silicon pad that you slip into the appropriate slot?"

"Yep. That's why I want an expert," Pete said. As though to underscore his words, the nearest elevator door opened and Chase walked out.

"Ah," Taub said. "For a moment I believed that you were here because of me."

"Do I have to choose?" Pete asked, sticking out his lower lip. "Can't I give both of you a rose?"

"Huh?" Chase said.

"Never mind," Taub said, rolling the two words into one. "I need to bleach my brain."

Chase looked from Taub to Pete and back again. Then he said, "Can we take whatever-this-is somewhere else? I've been on duty for thirty-six hours straight now, and I need a change of scene."

"Technically," Taub said, "this is my lunch break." He looked at the clock in the lobby. "Okay, make that my 'lunch-cum-dinner' break, so I guess I've got an hour. But then I have to be back here. Patient dying and all that, you know."

Chase, of course, knew just the place where Taub could get something to eat while he and Pete could get decent drinks.

"Drinks are on me," Pete said when they'd ordered (Chase: beer; he: beer to keep Chase company, Taub: soda and a sandwich).

Both men stared at him. "What do you want?" Taub finally said. "I mean, other than Chase performing an operation that is admittedly not routine, but for which he is _the_ expert in the New Jersey area?"

Chase lifted an eyebrow. "I am?"

"Wilson needs a new liver," Taub explained to Chase.

"This wouldn't by any chance be connected to the cancer drugs you got from Cameron?" Chase asked.

Pete scratched over his stubble, which was getting uncomfortably long and itchy.

Chase leaned forward. "Neither of us is on the transplant committee. And before you ask, Cameron isn't either. She dropped out last year when Diagnostics expanded its capacity by twenty-five percent."

Neither piece of information was a major disappointment because he hadn't been banking on getting a new liver from PPTH.

"Can't Cuddy …?" Chase continued.

Pete cut in. " _No one_ can get him anywhere near the top of a transplant list. But," he added, "I've got a live donor."

"That's … great," Taub said, making it sound like a question.

"You're not the 'live donor' by any chance, are you?" Chase asked.

Pete snorted. "Nope. Our blood types don't match." Not to mention that he didn't qualify for a live donation for any number of reasons, as Chase well knew.

Chase signalled to the bartender for another beer. "So what's the problem?"

There was more than one problem, but there was no need for Chase and Taub to hear about _all_ of them. Lisa's staff, unhappy about the clandestine manner in which Wilson had arrived, were loath to get involved in anything that might get them hauled into an inquiry. It didn't help matters that Lisa was only an interim dean; leading staff members were using the period of uncertainty to stake claims or spin intrigues against their colleagues, with the net result that interdisciplinary cases such as Wilson's had all involved departments squabbling like fishmongers. The procedure was tricky not only from a medical but also from a moral perspective; chances were that hospital politics would screw up the little medical common sense that he'd seen so far.

But it wasn't his habit to volunteer more information than was strictly necessary, so he said, "Philadelphia Central isn't a transplant centre. The surgeons haven't got the experience to do a live transplant."

"You want the procedure to be done at PPTH?" Taub asked.

"No," Pete said. "Transporting Wilson isn't an option. I want _you_ to do it at Philadelphia Central."

Chase leaned back, his expression quizzical. "You think we won't look as closely at your live donor as Cuddy's staff will. Sorry, House, but I know the guidelines and I'm not violating them. If your donor isn't in excellent health and aware of the risks, it's a no-go."

Pete pretended to a nonchalance that he didn't feel. "Don't worry, the donor will go through the hospital's clearing process."

"And I'm not removing more than sixty percent of his liver," Chase added, a challenging gleam in his eyes.

"Up to seventy percent is considered safe in healthy donors," Pete said.

"Sorry, not happening," Chase said. "I'm not endangering the donor in order to save Wilson."

Pete dropped his eyes to signify that he accepted Chase's decision. He doubted that any surgeon of Lisa's would agree to transplant more than sixty percent of the donor liver (if any of them were prepared to attempt the procedure at all), so it wasn't as though this was a major concession.

Chase, however, wasn't lulled into compliance. If anything, Pete's assent to his conditions seemed to have increased his suspicions. "And I want to talk to the donor before the procedure to ensure he is doing this of his own free will."

Pete pretended to be hurt. "Would I con or bully someone into agreeing to a transplant?" he asked.

Taub and Chase looked at each other. "Yes," they said in unison.

"Who's the lucky person?" Taub asked.

"I'm in contact with Wilson's family," Pete said vaguely. "One of his brothers is a potential donor."

"Oh, okay," Chase said, looking relieved. "We'll need privileges at Philadelphia Central, though."

"And leave from PPTH," Taub added.

Pete brushed that aside. "Lisa can wrangle both. Your boss won't refuse a request from a former dean involving a former head of oncology, not when it is couched in phrases like, 'PPTH's great expertise and universal renown in the area of transplants'."

"So," Chase asked, "what's the catch? Because there has to be a catch, otherwise you wouldn't have left Wilson for half a day just to ask us for something that you could have demanded from our boss."

His mouth twitched in approval. He'd have been disappointed in his former fellows if they hadn't smelled a rat. "Wilson was being stupid," he explained. "He didn't want to be admitted to hospital, so … ." He hesitated, scrunching up his face as he considered how to sell what had happened.

"So you drugged him and dragged him there," Chase concluded for him.

It was unnerving, the way that man practically anticipated his thought processes.

"What's to stop him from leaving?" Taub asked.

Pete grinned wryly. "Lisa's hospital has a policy that won't allow patients to be released AMA unless they can fend for themselves or can produce a caregiver."

"We still need his consent for a transplant," Chase pointed out.

"Not if he isn't in a state to express his wishes. Wilson has hepatic encephalopathy, which means he can't make his own decisions. Lisa is his medical proxy," Pete said, his voice heavy with meaning.

His former fellows looked at each other again. Chase raised his eyebrows questioningly at Taub, who pinched the bridge of his nose in quiet despair.

Chase played with his bottle. "What's in it for us?"

Pete leaned back, hiding his satisfaction. Chase wouldn't be bargaining if Pete hadn't managed to overcome his doubts and instinctive distrust of such a shady affair. Nevertheless, it wouldn't do to seem too keen to oblige him. "You mean, other than the satisfaction it gives you to help a former colleague and friend?" he said.

"Wilson was never a friend," Chase countered.

Taub looked consternated. "No?" he asked Chase.

"No," Chase, on his third beer now, said. "We turned to Wilson with House-related problems, not with our own."

Interesting. When planning the negotiation, Pete had assumed that Chase would help from a sense of moral obligation while Taub might need a financial incentive, but it seemed that the reverse was true.

"What do you want?" Pete asked. He disliked having to ask straight out; he'd have preferred to find out by himself so as to gain a strategical bargaining position, but chances were that the transplant would have to be performed within the next few days. There was no time to play head games with Chase.

Chase tugged at his collar. "I was thinking of switching jobs. PPTH is a dead end for me: the head of surgery is only ten years older than me and shows no intention of leaving PPTH."

"I don't think the head of surgery in Philadelphia is that much older," Pete said, frowning.

"No, but now that Cuddy is dean, maybe she'll be interested in opening up a diagnostic department at Philadelphia Central. Diagnostics was her baby when she was here."

Pete propped his chin on his hand, considering this. Lisa wasn't dean _yet_ , and if he were given to gambling – come to think of it, he was – he wouldn't put his money on her. She'd just delivered a half-dead guy to the ICU under very shady circumstances, a guy who was due to have two very iffy procedures performed on him in the near future, procedures of such doubtful medical advisability that her surgical staff would mutiny if asked to do them (which was why he had no intention of trying to get their consent). Furthermore, if he didn't get a donor with an extra piece of liver soon, then he'd have to give the emotional thumbscrews that he'd put on Lisa another few turns, and he suffered from no illusions whatsoever as to what that would do to her career.

He shied away from that thought, focusing on the present. Chase couldn't know all this. But he _could_ point this out to Chase; maybe he _should_ point it out to Chase, considering that Chase was prepared to do him two major favours. Then again, Chase hadn't researched the person and the place that he was targeting, otherwise he'd know that Lisa wasn't dean yet. Maybe Chase wasn't so much interested in starting something new as in getting away from the old.

Pete's mood lightened. His bargaining position with respect to both of Wilson's pending operations could improve considerably depending on how badly Chase wanted (or needed) to get away from PPTH. Five percent more donor liver for Wilson could make a big difference in his present state and it would be nice, _very_ nice indeed, if Chase re-sectioned Wilson's tumour even if the chemo treatment didn't shrink it as much as he'd assured Chase it would.

He tapped a happy rhythm on the table with the fingers of his free hand. "What better way to recommend yourself to Lisa than by saving Wilson's life for her?" he said, injecting a world of innuendo into the words.

Taub looked confounded. "Cuddy and Wilson are … an item?"

Pete opened his eyes wide. "Did I say they were?" he said.

"Are they?" Chase asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

"My lips are shut," Pete said, miming zipping up his lips.

"And – you're okay with that?" Taub asked.

"Okay with what?" Pete asked, purposely obtuse.

"With Cuddy and Wilson doing … whatever they're doing," Taub said, flapping his hands in a weak imitation of the kind of illustrative gesture that Wilson was fond of.

Pete weighed a packet of peanuts in his hand, estimating the number of nuts inside. If he got the number right, he'd eat the whole packet. If he didn't – he'd eat the packet anyway. Thirty-three peanuts, he decided. He looked up to find both men staring at him expectantly.

"Lisa Cuddy and I had a short history that ended badly, and before that a long history that ended …," he paused for effect, pretending to ponder his choice of words, "… even worse. How often do you think I have to repeat the experience in order to be cured?"

"Actually," Taub said, enunciating every word clearly, "I was referring more to you being okay with _Wilson_ doing Cuddy than the other way round: I get that you and Cuddy are barely on talking terms. All the more reason for you to object to Wilson dating her."

Pete raised his eyebrows questioningly, so Taub added, "You don't like Wilson dating women who you don't like."

Chase snorted. "He doesn't like Wilson dating, period."

Pete tipped the contents of the peanut packet onto the table, mechanically grouping the nuts in fives to facilitate counting while he considered his response to the men's statements.

Their misconception was one he hadn't anticipated, because he saw Amy as the main hindrance to Wilson dating Lisa, not himself. But the fellows didn't know about Amy and her foetus, which was all the better, because it meant that he wouldn't have to explain her away. As for the rest, they were wrong on all counts: Lisa and he squabbled and fought and yelled and sulked, but it was a lot less awkward than the ice age that had reigned after he stumbled across his true identity at the PPTH anniversary gala. He didn't _dislike_ her as such. As for Wilson, there was no harm in him getting laid as long as he didn't turn into one of those compulsive pleasers who spent all their time dancing attendance on their girlfriends. Lisa was too busy to block Wilson's schedule and Wilson wasn't crazy about her. If Wilson dated Lisa, nothing would change.

But regardless of whether he liked the idea of Wilson and Lisa dating, it was a necessary part of his stratagem that his former fellows believed in the possibility. "Wilson is practically living at Lisa's place, he's cooking for her, he's hanging out with her kid doing 'kiddy' things, he's celebrating Jewish festivals with them. He enjoys it while Lisa gets a dad for her runt and intelligent conversation at the dinner table. I'm not around much, so why should it bother me? If that's what they want, so be it."

Thirty-five. His estimate was off by two peanuts. He flicked a peanut at Chase, who was lost in deliberations of his own.

Taub looked unconvinced. "No matter how a guy feels towards his ex, he doesn't like to see other guys messing with her," he said.

"You'd know!" Chase muttered.

"Pot, meet kettle!" Taub countered. He turned back to Pete. "I don't know what game you guys are playing, but someone's going to get hurt again, and I don't like what you – _any_ of you three – do when you get hurt. I want to be well outside your nuclear exclusion zone when you detonate."

"Relax," Pete said tiredly. "Until and unless Wilson survives, this is a hypothetical discussion, and the only thing that's detonating at the moment is Wilson's liver."

"What time frame are we talking about?" Taub asked.

"A few days," Pete replied. Chase whistled. "It's gotta be done, and the longer we wait, the weaker he'll get. A day, or maybe two, to get the donor liver, and then we're set to go." He looked at them expectantly.

Chase stared at him long and hard. Finally he said, "I'm on duty till Thursday. I'll have to get someone to take my shift."

Taub shrugged. "If it's for Wilson, Cameron will let me go."

Chase grimaced and got up, pulling his cell from his pocket. "Can we fix a day?" he asked.

"Day after tomorrow," Pete said, hoping Lisa wouldn't have a holy cow.

Chase nodded and went outside, presumably to call his boss.

When he was out of the door, Taub leaned forward. "I get that you want Chase in on this, but why do you want me? I'm a plastic surgeon, and I haven't assisted recently except during the occasional surgery that we have in diagnostics. I'm definitely not qualified to assist during an organ transplant, and bringing me in will piss Cuddy's staff off big time."

Pete looked at the door through which Chase had vanished. "You're there to ensure that Chase goes into the OT sober," he said.

Taub sighed. "I knew there was a major hitch."

Pete didn't quite meet his eyes. He didn't want to discuss Chase's problem, which wasn't _his_ problem. Someone else was going to have to solve that one.

"I need to get back to the hospital," Taub said.

 _So do I,_ Pete thought. He settled the bill – Chase had drunk four beers in the hour they'd been there – and followed Taub outside. Chase was standing outside smoking; that explained why he'd gone out to make his phone calls. Pete held out his hand. Chase sighed, but gave him a cigarette and pulled out a lighter. Wrinkling his nose in disgust, Taub gave them a half-wave and set off towards PPTH.

"I've cleared the day after tomorrow. The rest is up to you," Chase said.

They smoked in companionable silence. "How's Wilson reacting to being drugged?" Chase finally asked.

Pete shrugged. "Badly. He'll get over it."

"Just like old times," Chase said.

Was it? "Were you drinking this much back then?" Pete asked.

Chase whistled in mock acknowledgment. "Interesting that you should bring it up just before I do a complicated medical procedure on your friend. I've got it under control, okay?"

That's what they all said. "You didn't answer my question."

"Is it your problem? When you were on Vicodin, I minded my own business."

"Oh, is that what they call 'enabling' nowadays?"

"Look, I know what I'm doing and you knew what you were doing. If you're looking for a scapegoat to blame for your addiction issues, then go look in a mirror."

Chase's cell rang. He took it out and looked at the caller ID, frowning when he saw who it was. "Hello?" he said. Pete sincerely hoped that if it was a surgical emergency at PPTH, it wouldn't require a steady hand.

But it wasn't PPTH. "It's for you," Chase said, proffering the phone. "Cuddy."

"Why aren't you taking your phone?" Lisa said without any preamble. "I tried to call you five times and I sent you about twelve messages."

Pete took out his own cell and checked. It was on silent mode. Oops! "Are you missing me, honey-buns?" he cooed into Chase's phone.

"Wilson is slipping into a coma."

* * *

She was sorting through the paperwork that she should have done this afternoon (instead of making lots of desperate phone calls trying to locate Pete) when he finally ambled into her office (without knocking, of course).

"When I couldn't reach you, I figured you might be with Wilson's brother, finalising the plans for the liver donation, so I phoned him. Guess what: Michael Wilson isn't prepared to donate. What's more, he says he told you so two weeks ago, and he'd be grateful if we stopped pestering him."

Pete didn't look particularly put out. Why should he? He'd probably known this all along. "He was a … a possibility," he said, with a flourish of his hands.

"Well, now he's a no-go," she said tartly. "Where were you?"

He sprawled on her couch. "Setting up a transplant team as I promised, oh Mighty One. "

Getting up and coming around her desk, she tossed Wilson's file onto the coffee table in front of him.

He sat up and picked the file up, taking his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket. His chin rested on his knuckles as his eyes darted up and down the columns of the latest blood panel. "A few days," he finally pronounced. "Maybe a week, then he's dead." He snapped the file shut. "Chase will do the transplant with Taub to assist him."

"What, without a donor liver?" she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm.

He looked up at her over the rims of his glasses. After what seemed a long silence he said, "You have blood group O, the same as Wilson."

Blood roared in her ears. She sat down suddenly on the edge of her desk, registering its sharp bite on the back of her thighs. "You – want me to donate?" she said in a voice that sounded very far away to her.

"No, I don't. I _need_ you to donate. What I _want_ is that some idiot wraps his motorcycle round the nearest lamppost while Wilson gets bumped to the top of the transplant list, but we don't always get what we want."

She rubbed her forehead, trying to get her thoughts sorted. "I can't do this. I've got commitments – Rachel, my job."

He sighed theatrically. "You're gonna let Wilson die because you don't want files piling up on your desk?"

Trust him to oversimplify matters and make them all black-and-white whenever it suited his purpose. "No," she snapped. "I'm making sure _I_ won't die, because I have a daughter who needs me!"

He folded his glasses and replaced them in his shirt pocket. Then he rose with the swift grace that had always accompanied him, even when his leg had given him hell, and moved towards her. She instinctively drew herself up, knowing that he'd use every advantage he had – height, charisma, verbal aptitude, polemic, and knowledge of her weaknesses – to get his way.

He loomed over her. "You'll be happy to hear that a recent review of live liver donations showed that of one hundred donors, not a single one died. You'll be around to make Rachel's life a misery for as long as she'll let you."

"Why is it okay for Michael Wilson to opt out by citing his family obligations, but not for me?" she asked in a last-ditch effort to stave off the inevitable.

"How does he stand to benefit? He hasn't seen Wilson these past five years. He isn't the one who has had Wilson living in his apartment, celebrating Hanukkah with his family, pushing his kid's wheelchair and watching sappy musicals with her."

She swallowed hard. "How long will I have to stay in hospital?"

His eyes smiled, though his mouth hardly quirked. "A week. You'll have to take it easy for another six to eight weeks." He paused, his eyes narrowing to gauge her reaction, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of freaking out at this. Two months of not being able to work one job, let alone the two she was doing at the moment! He had to know what that meant: she could take the deanship and stuff it up a dark, damp place.

"And no heavy lifting for three months," he added.

"Wha - what? You've got to be joking!"

"Are these lips smiling? Not more than 30 pounds."

"Pete, I have a wheelchair-bound child! I can't _not_ lift her for three months."

He looked her up and down. "Since you're smaller than Wilson, they'll have to take the whole right lobe, so make that five months."

"Oh, wow, that makes the proposition so much more attractive!" She threw up her hands. "Seriously, Pete, how's that supposed to work?"

He shrugged. "Get someone to help you."

That was typical of him! He'd always refused to consider the day-to-day implications of his life-saving crusades – unless they impinged directly on his own well-being.

He seemed to sense her objections. "Come on, if you were the one who was dying, Rachel's life would also have to go on somehow."

This was something she'd rather not be reminded of. Besides, it wasn't the same. If she died, Julia would chip in and take Rachel, and she'd do a great job. But Julia wouldn't want to take Rachel for over eight weeks if she, Cuddy, decided to volunteer for a procedure at the bidding of a man who was to the Cuddy clan what Voldemort was to the wizarding world. Even if Julia was prepared to do so, it wouldn't be a good solution because Rachel would miss weeks and weeks of school. Pointing all this out to Pete, however, was a waste of time and energy. When he was on a roll mundane considerations such as these couldn't stop him.

So as she walked back to her phone, she merely said, "As my favourite philosopher used to say, 'Dying changes everything. _Almost_ dying changes nothing.'"

He looked genuinely confused. "Who's that?"

"Never mind," she muttered. Perching on the edge of her desk again, she asked as she picked up the phone, "When do you want to do the transplant?"

"The day after tomorrow."

She dropped the receiver as though it was hot. "That'll never work. The procedure calls for a forty-eight hour period of consideration, during which the donor can retract their offer." The operation was a lengthy one – five hours at the best, more like ten if there were complications. If the operation was to take place the day after the next, it would be scheduled to begin in the morning, roughly in thirty-six hours. No matter who Pete bullied into donating, they were running out of time.

"That period can be shortened at the discretion of the physician in charge of the procedure if there is a close tie between donor and recipient."

"'Close tie' is defined as parent or spouse," Cuddy clarified. He was doubtless well informed, but she was chief administrator and knew how transplant committees interpreted the guidelines. "I'm neither."

"A spouse, or _partner_ ," Pete said.

"Wilson isn't my partner. … Oh, no, Pete! No one will believe that Wilson and I …"

Pete grimaced. "Actually, they believe it already."

Cuddy could feel a flush spreading upwards from her neck. "Why would they …?"

She cast her mind back over the past day. With Wilson refusing to speak to him, Pete had been at a loose end all morning, hanging around the hospital with nothing much to do until he'd scooted off to PPTH. She'd seen him from a distance a few times, hobnobbing with the nurses.

Pete didn't hobnob unless he had a reason.

" _You_ spread the rumour, didn't you?" she said.

Pete's gaze flickered downward, then up again.

Rage bubbled up inside her. "You'd planned this all along, hadn't you? You _knew_ your treatment would trash Wilson's liver, and you were banking on my liver right from the start!"

His eyes returned to her face. "You were Plan B," he said, "but I knew Plan A didn't stand much of a chance."

"It's easy for you," she fumed, "but for me it means re-organising my life and saying goodbye to the job I've worked towards for the past four years."

He followed her to the desk, his fingers absently sorting through the objects on it.

"Yeah, it's easy for me," he agreed gravely. "But it's easy for me either way. If Wilson dies, I go back to England, and after a few months my life will return to the way it was before I knew he existed. I'll know I did my best to save him, but that there was nothing more I could do. But you – you'll spend the rest of your life wondering whether you sacrificed your only friend on the altar of your ambition and your convenience."

He perched on the desk next to her, his arm a hair's breadth away from hers. The slightest tilt of her upper body, and she'd be leaning against him, if she so chose. She didn't; he was out of his comfort zone already, and forcing him to deal with her physical need for reassurance wouldn't get her anywhere. This was the closest he'd come of his own accord; expecting him to take her in his arm or pat her shoulder was pushing it.

He looked at her with compassion. "Wilson doesn't stand a chance of getting any other liver. Don't let your annoyance at my methods induce you to make a decision that you'll regret for the rest of your life."

A wave of fear washed over her. She looked down at her shoes so that he wouldn't see the panic in her eyes. "Okay," she said, keeping her voice low to mask the quaver in it. "Okay, I'll do it."

She couldn't see his face, but after a few seconds she heard him sigh. Then he pushed himself off the desk and went to the door, the unevenness in his gait so pronounced that she caught herself looking around for his cane.

She cleared her throat. "Pete?"

He stopped, one hand on the doorframe, and half-turned, his eyes avoiding hers.

"I consider _you_ my friend too," she said.

He showed no visible reaction. After a moment he gave a minimalist nod and continued on his way.


	18. Final Preparations

The ICU staff was so used to his presence that they ignored him completely as they went about their various duties, but the moment he tried to sneak into Wilson's room one of the nurses stopped him.

"He's in a coma; he won't care!" he protested, but the nurse just gave him a thin-lipped smile as she guided him back into the corridor. So he lurked around until Dr Liu appeared. She was carrying a whole bundle of files and looking distinctly harassed. He blocked her way into Wilson's room, draping himself across half the width of the corridor by leaning against the wall with one hand.

"What's his prothrombin time?" he asked.

"Sorry, I can't tell you," she said.

He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow intimidatingly. "We can do this my way: you give me the information I want, with no one the wiser. Or we do it your way: I go to Dr Cuddy and ask her to give me the information, which she undoubtedly will. She'll have to phone you to get it – in between juggling the OT schedule for the transplant, booking the necessary surgical staff, getting the transplant signed off by a shrink, obtaining the transplant committee's okay, arranging for leave, etc., etc." He churned out the words, rotating his free hand in illustration and ending somewhat breathlessly. Then he nodded towards Wilson's still form. " _He's_ beyond caring, and _she_ is more bothered about getting everything organised before the procedure than about patient confidentiality."

The click-clack of approaching heels served to underscore his point. Lisa came round the corner, trailed by a young PA who was trying keep up with her and take notes at the same time.

"Morning, Dr Liu," she said. "What's the latest news on Dr Wilson?"

Liu handed her a file from her pile. Lisa passed it straight to Pete without opening it. He paused long enough to give Liu a tongue-in-cheek grin before he took out the most recent test results, only listening with half an ear to Lisa's conversation with Liu.

"The transplant committee is meeting at ten; I've got my physical at eleven. Psych is sending someone down to talk to me this afternoon. So, we should be all set by tomorrow."

Pete held up his hand. "We should get this show on the road this evening at the latest," he said.

Lisa peered at the file.

"He's developing intracranial hypertension and the saline isn't helping," Pete said, not waiting for her to interpret the data herself. "He needs a transplant ASAP." Addressing Liu he said, "Cool him down to bridge the time till the transplant."

"Hypothermia has been shown to be adverse towards liver regeneration," Liu objected.

"If he's dead before we can transplant, liver regeneration will be a hypothetical issue," he pointed out.

"Good thing I didn't eat any breakfast," Lisa said. She turned to her assistant. "Roger, move the OT reservation to this afternoon at 4 p.m. and call in the surgical teams. Oh, and move my psych appointment forward – we can do it before the transplant committee meets. No, wait, ask all the department heads to come to an emergency meeting at ten."

"Ten is when the transplant committee meets," the PA said. "Both Pearson and Takai are on the committee, so if you want them at the department head meeting …."

"Right," Lisa said. "Make it eleven and move my physical forward to ten instead. Schedule the psych evaluation for eleven-thirty – no, that's cutting it too tight, make that eleven-forty-five. Then contact PPTH and ask them to send Doctors Chase and Taub over as soon as possible. On second thought, I'd better do that myself. Their dean is a stickler for protocol, and he won't like being told what to do by a PA," she added with a sigh. "Text me in half an hour to remind me to get it done."

"Do it now," Pete ordered, thinking about Chase. The earlier in the day they got hold of him, the likelier he was to be sober.

He turned to Liu, who still hadn't budged. "Hypothermia," he repeated slowly, as though speaking to a child. "95°F to start off with. Now!"

Liu snatched the file from him and stomped off. He was about to follow her to make sure she followed his instructions when Lisa grabbed his arm.

"I need you to pick up Rachel," she said.

"Me and your sister," he said, pointing demonstratively from himself to her, "in one room? Not a good plan."

"She isn't at Julia's place. She's staying with Lucas, but I said I'd pick her up on Sunday." He must have looked blank. "Lucas Douglas, the PI?" she elaborated.

"Ah, the weasel," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "The 'weasel' used to be your friend and you still do business with him." She snatched her PA's pen, grabbed Pete's hand, and wrote something on the back of it. "That's the address; it's in Trenton."

"Why don't you just leave her there for the week?" he suggested. "Or tell your sister to get her and keep her?" Lisa would be hospitalised for the entire coming week; having Rachel at home wouldn't make matters easier.

"No," Lisa said decisively. "I want to talk to her myself before the operation and explain what's going to happen, and I want her close enough that she can visit me every day if she wants to. She can stay at my neighbour's, and I have a student who does the school run three days a week. She can do it every day for the next few weeks."

This was the sort of superfluous sentimental crap that ended up complicating everyone's lives: he very much doubted that Rachel would benefit from seeing her mother in the state she'd be in after the liver transplant, while he'd be much better employed keeping an eye on Liu and her pals than playing shuttle bus.

He was about to say so when Lisa, who must have divined his intentions, said, "Bring me my daughter or you won't get my liver!"

She was half joking, but he could see that she was serious about wanting to see Rachel. He supposed he could tell her she was being an idiot, but he was up against the full evolutionary force of maternal protectiveness, a force that had preserved the species for millions of years, so he might as well shelve his logic and save his breath.

"Okay," he said, not even trying to hide his reluctance.

She nodded her satisfaction before returning to dean-atrix mode. "Take my car, not Wilson's; it's easier to get the wheelchair inside," she instructed. "Roger will bring you the keys. Don't forget to take her booster seat from Lucas's car, and …"

"Relax, Lisa," Pete drawled. "I'm capable of transporting your crippled cutie from Trenton to Philly without losing bits and pieces of her paraphernalia." To Lisa's PA he said, "When you bring the car keys, get me a sandwich and coffee, black and sweet. And a candy bar."

The PA looked at him doubtfully, then at Lisa. She seemed exasperated, but she said, "Take money from my purse when you get the keys, and get him what he wants from the cafeteria. Trust me, it's quicker than arguing with him. Oh, and 'sandwich' means something with lots of meat and nothing green in it."

Pete cast a quick look into Wilson's room, where a bunch of nurses were stacking ice packs around Wilson under Liu's aegis. She looked up and gave him a scowl, which he answered with a broad wink. He was beginning to like this place.

The same couldn't be said for Douglas's place: whitewashed wooden planks, grey shingles on the roof, green shutters (seriously?), flower boxes outside the windows. A few junipers and a hydrangea bush were in bloom along the front of the house. Three steps led up to a small front patio with an ornamental white chair on it. More flowers trailed out of a tin bucket that was perched on the chair. There were general signs of family habitation on the grass in front of the house: a glittery pink ball sporting some sort of Disney princess, a tipped-over ride-on car, a chewed-up tennis ball. A tall tree loomed up behind the house, indicating that there was a yard of some size back there. Incongruously, an ice-cream van was parked in front of the garage.

He parked Lisa's car behind the ice-cream van, completely blocking the sidewalk as a result, and got out, wondering whether Lisa had bothered to call Douglas to say that he was coming. That question, however, was answered almost immediately. The front door opened before he had as much as a chance to walk up the patio steps, and a silhouette appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Pete," Rachel's voice bawled from behind the figure in the door.

"Hey," Douglas said. "I'll just bring Rachel's stuff out." He reached behind the door. "Rachel, make room, so I can get at your things."

"I wanna say hello to Pete!"

"I'll take you next." Douglas, having disentangled bags and wheelchair, came down the steps. With a sudden rush and a cacophony of barking two golden retrievers burst through the door and came bounding after their master.

"Oh, no," Douglas said. "Trevor, Judy! Go back inside!"

The dogs ignored him completely, frolicking around the car and jumping up at Douglas. Rachel, who had wheeled herself to the edge of the steps, joined Douglas in yelling at the dogs before shouting, "Pete, come and get me!"

Pete opened the hatchback for Douglas, and then walked slowly over to the patio, buying time. He _might_ be able to carry Rachel down the steps, but there was a good chance they'd both end up sprawled on the ground at Douglas's feet.

"Pe-ete!" Rachel called again.

"Hang on, Rachel, I'm getting you," Douglas, who was probably aware of Pete's dilemma, called.

Pete put his foot on the bottom step of the patio and grinned up at Rachel. "Really cool kids drive their wheelchairs down steps," he said.

Douglas's head lifted in alarm. "House!" he admonished from the back of the car.

A woman had appeared behind Rachel, a toddler perched on her hip. She was about twenty-five, blonde and short and pretty in a nondescript sort of way. Her feet were bare, there were food stains on her T-shirt, and her jeans were practical rather than tight-fitting. "Oh, I thought Lisa was coming," she said, looking enquiringly at Pete.

"Change of plans," Douglas said, his head popping out from behind the car. "Lisa was kept back at the hospital." Looking embarrassed, he pushed past Pete, taking the steps in one leap. "C'mere, Rachel, let's get you down there."

Pete noted that Douglas hadn't introduced him.

Apparently his wife had noticed too. "Hi, I'm Cheryl," she said, ignoring Douglas and wiping the hand that wasn't supporting the toddler on her jeans before holding it out to Pete. "Don't worry, it's clean. It's just water."

Pete took the hand. The shake was surprisingly firm, the grey eyes that gazed down at him clear and open. "Pete," he said. "Friend of Lisa's."

"Nice to meet you," Cheryl said. She eyed her husband, who had plucked Rachel from the wheelchair and was trying to get past her. "What's the hurry, Lucas? Rachel's gonna think we didn't enjoy having her if you rush her out like that. I didn't realise she was leaving already, and I wanted to say goodbye. So did the girls, didn't you, Marcia?"

The toddler grabbed a lock of her mother's hair and tugged at it.

"I wanna say goodbye to Lucy and Marcia," Rachel proclaimed. "And to the dogs."

Douglas looked distinctly discomfited. "Sure," he said. "There's no hurry. It's just that your mom wants you back home, because …" He looked at Pete for help. Pete looked back expressionlessly. He was merely the chauffeur, not the bearer of ill tidings.

Cheryl said, "Why don't you come inside and have something to drink while Rachel says her goodbyes?"

Two toddlers, two dogs, Rachel, and Lucas Douglas's ball-and-chain? Hell would freeze over before he submitted himself to _that_ voluntarily.

Next to him Douglas shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, honey, I don't think Hou … Pete wants to stay. He probably wants to get back to the hospital. Told you about Wilson, didn't I?"

Interesting – Douglas wanted him gone. Or he wanted Rachel gone. The question was why?

Pete flashed a smile full of false sincerity at Cheryl. "Sure, something cold would be lovely."

But now Cheryl was looking at him suspiciously. "What did he call you?"

"Pete," Douglas said quickly.

"Peg-legged Pete the Pirate," Rachel chanted. "He's got a peg leg, Cheryl."

Cheryl drew herself up to her full five foot four; since she was on the patio while he was three steps below her, she was at an advantage. Her eyes were narrowed balefully, the hand that wasn't supporting the toddler was on her hip, and her chin jutted out. "You're Greg House, aren't you?"

"I cannot tell a lie," he murmured, pretty sure where this was going.

Cheryl didn't disappoint. She turned on Douglas. "Lucas, I can't believe you let him come here to your house, near your children! I don't want him here!" The toddler started crying. "Shush, it's okay, sweetie. Mommy isn't yelling at you. She's yelling at the bad man."

Despite Cheryl's attribution muddle everyone got that she meant him, because now everyone was staring at him, even the dogs.

"What's wrong with Pete?" Rachel asked.

"Sweetie, he ran his car into your house and nearly _killed_ you," Cheryl said, leaning down to Rachel.

"No, he didn't," Rachel said indignantly. "That was Hurricane Irene!" It seemed that nearly being killed by a hurricane was _way_ cooler than being the victim of a crazed drug addict.

"That's not what I heard," Cheryl said.

"Rachel wasn't in the house," Pete said tiredly.

Cheryl was not pacified. "You think that's an excuse?" she said, her voice rising dangerously.

"It was an 'accident'," Douglas said with a significant glance in Rachel's direction.

"It was domestic abuse," Cheryl insisted. "You're not doing Rachel or your girls a favour by glossing over misogynist violence just so you can avoid a scene. You're teaching them that guys can walk all over them as long as they can find a convenient excuse …"

"Okay, okay," Douglas said, throwing up his hands. "He's leaving, okay?"

He gave Pete a pseudo-apologetic look as he brought Rachel down. Pete considered letting Douglas do all the lifting by himself, but Cheryl glowering from the patio put a damper on the atmosphere, so lingering seemed undesirable. Doing his best to ignore her, he grabbed the wheelchair from the patio, folded it, and placed it in the trunk of the car.

When everything was packed Cheryl came over to the car, giving Pete a wide berth, and gave Rachel a hug. By this time a second child was clinging to her leg. There was a general round of slobbery kisses and hugs and _it-was-lovely-having-you's_ before Cheryl grabbed the brats and stalked away, shooting Douglas another deadly glare while ignoring Pete completely.

"Geez, sorry about that," Douglas said insincerely. "I must've mentioned you. … I mean, you driving into Lisa's house caused a huge uproar. … I'm always shooting off my mouth."

Pete put the car into reverse gear and accelerated so fast that he would have driven over Douglas's foot if the man's reflexes had not been excellent. He jumped back, the look of effete amiability finally dropping off his countenance, and uttered a string of expletives that would have made a sailor blush. Pete wondered whether he could egg Rachel into repeating them to Lisa.

"Oops," Rachel said. "You're a really bad driver, Pete. First you smashed your car into our house, and just now you nearly drove over Lucas." She examined him skeptically. "You're not drunk again, are you? 'Cause you shouldn't drive when you're drunk."

"Worried about driving with me?" he asked.

"No, just saying." Rachel seemed insulted at the insinuation that she might be afraid of driving with him. "I'm not afraid; the car's got air bags in front and at the sides."

"You should be worried," Pete said. He could sense Rachel staring at him, but he kept his eyes trained on the road. "You heard Cheryl: I'm not safe."

"Oh, that – that was _ages_ ago. Nana goes on and on about it, like she does about the Holocaust and the Germans killing my great-great-granddad, but Mom says we've got to be nice to the Germans again, because it was all so long ago and they're sorry about it."

So he was history. It could be worse, he supposed.

Rachel's mind had turned to more pressing issues. "Do you think Mom'll let me have a dog?"

Concentrating on getting his bearings, he didn't answer.

She sighed. "I guess not."

"You're going about this the wrong way. You should be thinking, 'What should I do to make her get me a dog?' instead of leaving it to chance."

"And what do I have to do to make her get me a dog?" Rachel promptly asked.

"I dunno. But you've got good cards at the moment. Play them right, and you could end up with one."

Rachel gave him a nasty look. "You're no use."

Old _and_ useless. By the end of this car trip he'd be looking for his self-esteem with a magnifying glass. That was, _if_ this car trip ever came to an end: they were passing through an idyllic landscape with fields and groves of trees on either side of the highway, a landscape that he couldn't remember passing through on the way down. He'd passed through densely populated urban areas all the way from Philadelphia to Trenton.

"Toto, I've got a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," he muttered.

"Kansas? Where are we going?" Rachel asked.

"To the hospital," he said.

"What are you doing now?"

He pulled up at the curb. "I'm programming the Satnav." He should have done that before leaving Douglas's place, but it would have ruined his dramatic exit. "South 9th Street," he muttered, tapping the screen of the Satnav with a vengeance. "Come on, you lame thing!"

"You are going the wrong way," an impersonal female voice informed him. (Funny, he'd figured as much.) "Turn around when possible."

"Lucas says Satnav is for women and wimps," Rachel said.

Mentally amending 'magnifying glass' to 'microscope', he spun the car around 180 degrees, causing an oncoming sedan to brake and swerve, and accelerated back the way they'd come.


	19. Show Time

Lisa's office resembled army headquarters during a battle: her PA was yelling into his phone, harried nurses rushed in and out, physicians hung around hoping to get a last signature on some form or other. In the midst of it Lisa could be heard shouting instructions.

"Toxic substance!" Pete yelled, pushing Rachel's wheelchair into the melee.

The crowd made room, mostly because Pete had no compunction about bumping the wheelchair into people's shins. When Lisa spotted them, she enveloped Rachel in a warm hug. Pete retreated the way he'd come; this touching family reunion could progress without him, the transplant not so much. Chase had sent him a sum total of six text messages over the past twenty minutes, messages that he'd ignored so far. It was safe to assume, however, that preparations for the surgery weren't progressing in the manner that Chase desired.

It didn't take him long to find out what the problem was. He ran into Chase in the corridor outside Lisa's office.

Chase pulled him to one side. "Why the fuck didn't you tell me that it's Cuddy who's donating?"

Pete scrutinised the tips of his sneakers. "When we discussed it I didn't know for sure. It makes no difference, anyway."

"Makes no difference? She's _half_ his size! We'll need to take the entire right lobe of her liver!" Chase looked around the corridor as though checking out escape options. "I'm not doing it."

"Don't be an idiot! You didn't object to operating on Wilson. She is less likely to die than Wilson, no matter how much of her liver you take."

Chase's face stilled. "Don't try to mess with me, House. If we keep our fingers out of Cuddy, there's no chance of her dying."

"If you don't take Cuddy's liver, then Wilson's chances of survival are nil." He exhaled impatiently. "Take as much of her liver as you can justify; Wilson will just have to take his chance with what he gets."

Taub came up looking harried. "The surgical staff want you at the prep meeting," he said to Chase. "Have you talked with Cuddy?"

"Yes, she said she's fine with donating, knows all the risks, etcetera, etcetera," Chase said, glowering at Pete.

Pete stared right back. "Then everything's just hunky-dory, isn't it?" he said.

"Only if Wilson is her boyfriend for real."

Pete grimaced. Lisa's staff were a lot more credulous, probably because they had no reason not to believe him. "Is he such a bad choice for her?" he asked.

"No," Taub said. "That's the point: she isn't exactly known for sensible choices."

The part of his brain that was responsible for affect control indicated that if it didn't get a drink soon it would implode. "So, your _only_ objection to the procedure is that Lisa is finally dating a guy who is good for her?"

"No, it isn't. This is a bloody nightmare," Chase said. "We can't ask Wilson what he wants, and it turns out that his medical proxy is also our live donor."

Pete gave them his best 'duh' look. "That tends to be the case when partners are live donors, doesn't it?" he said.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Taub said.

His affect control gave a friendly wave and made for the emergency exit. "You're gonna let Wilson die because you have a 'bad feeling'?" he said, sketching the quotation marks with his fingers. (Judging by the heads turning his way, he must have gotten a bit loud.) "Do you subject _all_ your donors to an evaluation of their relationship status or is that a luxury reserved for my patients?"

The two men were silent.

"You've got Lisa's signatures on everything, she's healthy as a horse, and I take it that she passed the psych test. The rest is, None. Of. Your. Business! Go to your prep meeting!"

They moved off stiffly, their body language indicating their reluctance. He watched them until they rounded the corner, and then turned his attention back to Lisa's office. Lisa was kneeling in front of the wheelchair clasping Rachel's hands while Rachel looked confused and unhappy.

An OT nurse hurried past him towards the anteroom where Lisa's PA sat. "We need Dr Cuddy to get prepped for surgery," she said.

"I don't think she's ready yet," the PA said, showing no indication of interrupting Lisa's mother-daughter bonding session.

"She was supposed to have been down in the prep room twenty minutes ago," the nurse said.

It didn't look like either of them were likely to end this stand-off they were in, so he pushed past them and poked his head into Lisa's office.

"Need you," he said. "Get your neighbour to pick her up from here."

"I can't reach Louisa," Lisa said, while Rachel wailed, "Can't I sleep at home? I don't wanna sleep at Louisa's!"

Lisa turned back to her. "Honey, you're eight; you can't stay by yourself."

"What about Emma?"

"Not for a whole week; that won't work," Lisa said, looking stressed out of her mind. "This is ridiculous! Getting someone to run this hospital while I'm on sick leave is easier than getting Rachel fixed up for a week."

"Send her to your sister's," he said, tapping an impatient rhythm on the glass door.

Lisa bit her lip. "I don't think I want to explain _this_ to my sister until it's a _fait accompli_ ," she said. She had a point there: getting the Cuddy clan to consider this a good idea would take longer than Wilson had time.

He puffed out a long breath of air. "I'll fix something. You go get prepped," he said.

Lisa looked at him quizzically. "'Something'?" she repeated.

"Yeah. If Louisa doesn't turn up, I'll call Tanja," he said. "The Russian nurse," he added when Lisa looked blank.

"Oh, her," Lisa said disparagingly. "That'll work great – a woman who can't speak a word of English!"

He stared hard at her; she stared back. Finally she threw up her hands. "Okay. Just make sure there's always someone in the house when Rachel's there. She has physio on Tuesday after school, swimming on Thursday …"

"Swimming?" She had to be kidding.

"Yes, but I guess she can skip that, and she can certainly skip her Orff group. But she needs to go to physio again on Friday."

His expression must have given him away, because Lisa said, "She's attending her physio sessions, Pete. Those are not up for debate." She looked at Rachel. "Are you okay with Pete looking after you?"

Hang on, that wasn't what he'd offered!

Rachel examined him critically, and then nodded her head. "Yeah, Pete's okay."

Wow, what an endorsement!

Lisa bent down and gave Rachel an enveloping hug. "You can come visit me as soon as … as the doctors say it's okay," she said.

"Can't I stay here till after the operation?" Rachel asked, showing first signs of unease.

Lisa hesitated. Pete shook his head at her. There was a risk of complications and Wilson's chances of surviving the procedure were slim, to put it optimistically. Lisa nodded that she'd understood. "No, I'm afraid not," she said to Rachel. "The operation won't be over till the middle of the night and I'll be groggy for hours after that." She turned to Pete and jerked her head towards the door. The message was clear: _Get her outta here before she makes a scene._

"Then let's go," he said. If he got hold of Tanja or the elusive Louisa, he could be back in time for the operation.

As they left the room, he could hear Lisa on the phone again: "Yes, Arthur, I _know_ this is difficult and an imposition, but you owe me."

Rachel was silent all the way to the car. Once she was strapped in she said, "What does the liver do?"

"It cleans the blood."

"Oh. Can Mom's liver still clean the blood if half of it is gone?"

"Yeah, it grows back almost to its original size."

"And if Wilson gets Mom's liver, he'll be okay?"

He considered the impact of an honest answer. _No, chances are that either Wilson's body will reject the liver or that he'll die of an infection because his immune system is weakened. Or, if he's lucky, he might survive for long enough to die of cancer. But hey, let's cut up your mother anyway!_ Not really an option.

"It's a start," he finally said. "Once he has a functioning liver again, we can do something about his tumour." That was, if his tumour had shrunk sufficiently.

"And Mom's really going to be fine?" There was a plaintive note in her voice that he had never heard before. Rachel demanded, whined, and sulked with the best of them, but he'd never seen her confidence in life shaken.

He risked a sideways glance at her. "Yeah, the operation is practically risk-free for her. But she'll be very weak until her liver has re-grown to its original size."

When they reached the house in Germantown no one answered the door at Louisa's place.

"It's her book club afternoon," Rachel said. "She won't be back anytime soon." There was no mistaking the satisfaction in her voice.

He opened the door to Lisa's place with the key she'd given him and gestured to Rachel to enter while he pulled out his cell phone. Tanja was willing to help out once he'd sold her Rachel as a medical challenge, but no, she couldn't stay overnight; she had children of her own and had to leave at nine every evening. He supposed those had been her conditions when helping with Wilson, but he hadn't taken much notice because he'd had no intention of leaving Wilson for the night anyway.

"Will Louisa be back by nine?" he called to Rachel, who had gone straight into the kitchen.

"I don't wanna go to Louisa's place!" came the answer.

He went into the kitchen. The fridge was open and Rachel was in front of it, but whatever she was trying to get out was too far back for her to reach, and no leaning out of her wheelchair would change that. He really couldn't leave her alone, he supposed. She'd starve with a full refrigerator in front of her.

He fished out the yoghurt she was angling for and plonked it on the table. "Here," he said.

She wheeled back to get a spoon out of the silverware drawer. He waited until she tore the tin foil off the yoghurt cup and started eating.

"Look, I need to go back to the hospital," he said.

She glowered at him. "I'm not going to Louisa's," she reiterated.

"If I say you're going, then you're going."

"Can't I go back to Lucas and Cheryl?"

He'd need all of four hours to get her there and himself back, and he doubted they'd take her without Lisa's implicit instructions. Lisa, however, would be in the midst of the prepping process by now or being wheeled into the OT already. He wanted this fixed quickly so he could get back to the hospital. He'd leave her here with Tanja as soon as she came _if_ he could be sure that Rachel would go to Louisa's place before Tanja left for the night. But if Rachel played up, how would Tanja, with her non-existent English, explain the situation to Louisa and get Rachel to budge?

"Tell you what," he said. "If you agree to go to Louisa's place tonight, you can sleep here tomorrow night. I'll stay then."

Rachel eyed him shrewdly. "And the night after. And the one after that. I don't want to go to Louisa's for the rest of the week, then."

"No way!" he said. "One night, that's all."

"Louisa's got her bridge club on Tuesday night and dancing on Friday night. She won't want me on those nights anyway," Rachel said with the air of someone playing a trump card.

Her mother must have some other babysitter at hand, he figured. There was no way Lisa could always avoid engagements on Tuesdays and Fridays, not with the two jobs she was working at the moment. Of course, for the past few weeks Wilson had been at her disposal, ready to cook for, play with and read to her little monster …

"All you need to do is sleep here instead of downstairs," Rachel said in cajoling tones. "I won't bother you and I'll eat anything you cook."

He had no intention of cooking: there was takeout and Tanja could cook. But other than that she had a point. His plans for the coming week didn't feature anything that required his presence after nine p.m., so there was no reason why he shouldn't loll in front of Lisa's television instead of Wilson's. If something did come up – an emergency at the hospital, for instance – he could still organise someone for Rachel. If all else failed, he'd pay Lucas Douglas to come and babysit.

"Okay," he said, "it's a deal. You go to Louisa's place when she comes back, and in return you can sleep here for the rest of the week."

Rachel whooped with delight; he'd probably caved too quickly, he figured, but with a bit of luck her gratitude would make her generally amenable. She was still in such a good mood when Tanja arrived that she accepted the presence of a babysitter whose English was rudimentary at the best without batting an eyelid. Tanja tutted at the state of the fridge, accepted his offer to order takeout ungraciously, and generally put on a martyred air when she realised that he was about to leave her alone with a child who didn't understand her, but all that was easy to ignore. He wrote a note for Louisa, pinned it to her door, and went back to the hospital.

It was only when he got back that he realised he had no plan. He was a nobody; he had no official medical status that could help him get at information, let alone enable him to watch the procedure itself. He wasn't a family member of either party, so no one felt obliged to keep him updated. Chase or Taub might have done so if they'd had the time, but Chase had to supervise both procedures, the removal of Lisa's right lobe and its implantation in place of Wilson's liver, so there was no chance that he'd think of him, Pete.

He sat on a bench in front of the operation theatre area, kicking his heels and hoping that someone who came out would update him, when he realised that traffic was all in the other direction. A liver transplant – and with a live donor at that – was a sensation, so everyone at the hospital who had the time and a smidgen of an excuse was on a pilgrimage to the OT where the procedures were taking place. Finally he gave up and made his way to the ICU.

Liu was at the nurses' station going through some files. He leaned on the counter, folded his hands in front of him and rested his chin on them, gazing up at her wistfully.

She narrowed her eyes. "Shouldn't you be somewhere else?" she asked.

"No one wants me!" he said theatrically.

She straightened and jerked her head towards the door of the ICU. "Come on," she said.

When they reached the second floor she opened the doors to the OT area with her card and led him in. There was a staff room off to one side that she opened too. "You can wait here," she said. "The OT teams come in here for their breaks. Don't get on anyone's nerves!"

"Can't I watch from the gallery?" he whined.

Liu raised her eyebrows. "What gallery? We've got windows looking in on the operation theatres, but half the hospital will be crammed in front of them hoping to catch a glimpse of the procedure. You'll get thrown out in no time if you go there."

The room sported two shabby couches, a few armchairs, a shelf with discarded books and antediluvian magazines, a small television, and a coffee machine. He ensconced himself in an armchair with a pile of National Geographics and waited.

The first to come in were nurses and anaesthetists who'd ended their first stint in the OT. Pete did his best to look nondescript, willing himself not to gain undue attention as he listened to babble that mostly centred around the novelty of helping out during a live donation. A few doctors drifted in and out: lurkers from other departments, discussing the risks of the procedure, the advisability of Philadelphia Central doing it, and assessing Chase's competence.

It seemed that so far nothing dramatic had happened.

"We'd agreed on sixty percent of the liver. He took out seventy!"

Pete, who'd been nodding off from sheer boredom, started upright. A bigger group of surgeons and surgical nurses in scrubs had entered the room, straight from the OT by the looks of it.

"He's an experienced surgeon," someone else said. "He knows what he's doing."

"He's a former colleague of Dr Wilson's. He's saving his friend at the cost of the donor, who happens to be our dean. It's unethical, and it's not what we agreed on!" The surgeon who was talking slammed a cup under the coffee machine and pressed a button. The whirring and grinding of the machine swallowed whatever else he was saying.

So Chase had taken as much of Lisa's liver as he could. Pete felt a cold shiver along his back. It was true that live donations were unlikely to be fatal for the donor – but that was because in most cases they were parent-to-child donations where less than half the liver got transplanted. Seventy percent was … pushing it. Pushing it pretty hard.

He thought of Rachel back in the apartment in Germantown, confident that her mother would be fine because _he_ had said so. He thought of Chase taking out more of Lisa's liver than was warranted, because _he_ had egged him on. He thought of Lisa, whom _he_ had convinced that it was her duty to save her friend since the cost to herself was limited.

Shit. _Shit._ He'd fucked up big time.

If Lisa died, he'd have killed her, ruined Chase's career, and made an orphan of Rachel. And if Wilson died too, it would have been for nothing. He'd been so focused on disentangling the mess Wilson had gotten himself into that he'd lost all perspective.

He wished he were stupid enough to believe in a deity. You could pray to God, dump the fuck-up you'd caused on him, and then sit back expecting him to clean up the mess. If he didn't, well, then that meant that he _wanted_ things that way and that you'd merely been the tool he'd used to achieve his aims. What a wonderful way out for all fucked-up, stupid egomaniacs!

There was no such way out for him. If Lisa died, he'd never be able to atone for it.

The irony of it struck him. He'd given up his identity in a fit of disgust and loathing, triggered by a deed that had cost no lives and had seriously injured only himself. What act of cleansing would murder, caused by hubris disguised as friendship, require?

He staggered up, ready to flee the hospital, when Taub and Chase entered.

It was like the sea parting for Moses: the hubbub died down, everyone made room, those closest to the door exited discreetly. Chase collapsed on the nearest couch and sprawled along it, muttering, "Fuck! Oh, fuck, fuck!"

Pete's heart stopped.

Taub moved to his side and placed a hand on his arm. "Everything's fine. Cuddy is stable; they're removing Wilson's liver at the moment, and we aren't needed. Chase just needs a break – we have another five hours to go at the very least."

He stared down at Taub, processing his words. "How do you define 'fine' and 'stable'?"

Taub's face was expressionless. "Everything is going as planned."

Pete moved over to the couch, looming over it. "They say you took seventy percent of her liver," he said, not bothering to keep the menace out of his voice.

Chase cracked an eye open. "Chill, House," he said wearily. He struggled to pull himself upright.

Everyone in the room was looking at them.

"Someone get me a cup of coffee," Chase said. Three people promptly jumped. He rubbed a hand across his face and then tugged it through his hair, which could have done with a cut. "And an aspirin."

"You'll kill her. Correction: you _have_ killed her." He wanted to shake Chase or deck him, but if all this was to have a meaning, Chase had to save Wilson, so injuring him was not an option.

Chase gazed at him calmly, but not unkindly. "Wasn't that what you wanted? As big a chunk of liver as possible?"

He cast around the room, looking for something he could focus on before he lost it entirely, started yelling, and got tossed out of the OT area. "What _I_ want and what _you_ do …," he began.

" _Chill_ ," Chase repeated. "I did what I did because _I_ decided it was medically justifiable, not because _you_ asked me to do it. I'm a big boy now; I can make my own decisions. She's in excellent health. I've had patients where even half of what I took from her seemed risky in comparison. There's no sense in taking _any_ of her liver if it isn't enough to see Wilson through. It's all or nothing, House. Taking a pinch of liver here and another one there isn't going to get us anywhere, and Wilson doesn't have a second chance."

He smiled a thank you at the person who brought him coffee and an aspirin, tossed the aspirin in his mouth, and washed it down with a big gulp of coffee. Then he rolled his shoulders and stretched, causing his joints to crack alarmingly.

"Go home," he said. "There's nothing you can do here, and Wilson will need you more when he comes around than he does now. Come, Taub, we need to scrub in again." Nodding to Taub, he went out of the room.

Taub gave Pete what was probably supposed to be an encouraging pat on the arm, but which came over like a petrified boy trying to pat a huge, grim dog without getting his fingers bitten off. Turning to the room at large he said, "Keep this man supplied with candy bars; he's obnoxious when he's under-sugared." Then he followed Chase out into the harsh green corridor.

Everyone was still staring at him. To terminate all conversation he dropped down on the couch that Chase had just vacated and stretched himself along it, closing his eyes and draping his arm across them to shut out the light.


	20. Waking Up

Taub woke him around two a.m. "Wilson is sewn up and on his way to the SICU," he said. "Wow, you look a sight!"

"You're not looking too hot yourself," Pete said. Taub's eyes were red, his face pale, and his hands were trembling with exhaustion.

"I'm getting too old for all-nighters," Taub said. "I'm off to bed. What about you?"

Stupid question.

"I'll take you to the surgical ICU," Taub said.

Pete grabbed the three candy bars that had mysteriously appeared on the coffee table in front of him and followed Taub.

"We're the surgical team from Princeton-Plainsboro," Taub told the nurse on duty, flashing his temporary ID at her. She waved both of them through without checking Pete.

Inside, the eerie quiet of late night reigned. Wilson was intubated and attached to an alarming array of monitors, drains, and lines, with a nurse hovering over him checking the flow rate and making notes in his chart. In short, he looked terrible. Compared to him Lisa, off the ventilator already and merely having her vitals monitored, looked good.

"She was awake about an hour ago and she's doing fine," the doctor on duty said from behind him.

He jumped half a foot in surprise; he hadn't heard him coming up.

"What about Wilson?" he asked.

"Too soon to say, but the surgery went extremely well, I heard. The blood work won't be back for another two hours, though. I can't say much until we have that."

"What immunosuppressants have you got him on?"

"None; his immune system is down anyway, so we're waiting to see how he reacts to the new liver."

Pete nodded; it was what he'd have advised.

"Once we're sure the liver is functioning we'll move him back to the ICU. Dr Cuddy will be moved to a regular ward."

Pete nodded again.

"You wanna go in and see Dr Cuddy?" The doctor nodded at a sink equipped with the usual sterilisation paraphernalia.

He didn't want to. He didn't want to explain to Lisa that she had less than a third of her liver left. He looked around, but Taub must have left without his noticing.

He washed his hands thoroughly and then disinfected them. Then, for good measure, he put on a pair of gloves – the physician on duty believed he was here as a member of the transplant team, and he had no intention of disillusioning him by neglecting elementary precautions that any sane surgeon would take.

He went into Lisa's cubicle and sat on a rotating stool next to her bed, swinging slowly to and fro. When he got bored with that he took her file from the end of the bed and leafed through it. Healthy as a horse, that woman – prior to the transplant. Blood values all optimal, practically no prior medical conditions, not on any sort of medication except for an anxiolytic 'as needed', whatever that meant.

He checked out the psych evaluation that had taken place before the transplant.

_Dr Lisa Cuddy is in ongoing therapeutic treatment after severe episodes of PTSD and adjuvant depressive episodes. Her mental status is stable. We see no impediment to a live donation on her part._

So in theory, she was the ideal donor. In practice, she was too small to donate safely to a man with fifty percent more body mass than she had, and no matter what she'd made the psychiatric evaluator believe, she was less stable than you'd wish for in a donor. She still had flashbacks – he'd witnessed at least one of them – and the career set-back that she was headed for could easily unsettle people with no history of depression.

"Hey!" she croaked.

He snapped the file shut and slipped it onto the cart behind him, turning round to give her a bright false smile. "Hey, Sleepy Head," he said.

She smiled at him dopily. They must have given her the Good Stuff to dampen the pain.

"Our Shylock didn't stop at one pound of flesh; he went and took two, what with your liver looking so delectable." There was no reaction from her. He scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. "Upside is, you've lost weight. Two pounds in twelve hours: I could market this as a new miracle diet. But take it easy with the chocolate the next few days; you don't want to gain it all again before you leave the hospital."

Lisa gave a chuckle that turned into a grimace of pain. Maybe the good stuff wasn't good enough. Her hand moved from her side to the bedside railing. He stared down at it. Was he supposed to hold it or something?

"Wilson?" she asked.

"Doing fine, from what I've heard. Didn't flatline, didn't bleed into his abdominal cavity, no fun stuff at all. Your surgical staff got to watch a textbook transplant. They'll be itching to do it themselves next time."

"Won't be … a next time," Cuddy whispered. "Rachel?"

"It's three a.m.; didn't think you'd want her here at this time of day, what with school and all that."

"Bring her tomorrow?"

"Sure," he said. "I'll drag her here anytime you like."

She smiled again. He had to bend down to hear her next words. "You're cute … when you're feeling guilty."

He could feel himself flush. "Hey, I'm _always_ cute!" he said, pulling a hand theatrically through his sparse hair and getting up before he made even more of a dork of himself.

"Can I bring you anything: Chinese takeaway, spare ribs, whisky?" he asked. She wouldn't be allowed solids for a few days and she'd be teetotaling for months, so his offer was entirely spurious.

She smiled again and made a weak shooing motion with her hand, closing her eyes as she did so. It was a dismissal. He left the cubicle, glad to have gotten off so lightly. The next time he visited, she'd doubtless be in a considerably worse mood.

He considered his options. He could wait for Wilson's blood work to come back, but he doubted there'd be anything of importance at the moment. Wilson's state would be critical for days or possibly weeks; hanging out here now and losing all chances of getting some shuteye made no sense. But go back to the apartment and risk missing something?

There was one room in the hospital where he was unlikely to attract unwarranted attention – Lisa's office. He took the elevator to the first floor and followed the signs there. The entire wing was dark; administration had shut down for the night. The locks would normally have stymied him, but he had Lisa's home keys and sure enough, she had an office spare on the key ring. He went through the ante-room, unlocked her office door, re-locked it behind him and drew the blinds. Then he lay down on the couch and shut his eyes.

* * *

"Who are you?"

Someone was shaking his arm vigorously. He automatically snatched it away and sat up, trying to assess the threat posed by this stranger. He wasn't a security officer nor was he Lisa's PA, who knew him anyway and wouldn't have to ask who he was. He was a dapper man of around sixty in a suit and a tie, with metal-rimmed glasses. If the man thought he was a burglar or the like, then he was being brave (or very foolish), because Pete was sure he was a head taller and about twice as heavy.

"Who are _you_?" he returned the question.

"Excuse me, but I have every right to be here," the man said. "The same probably can't be said for you. What are you doing in Dr Cuddy's office?"

"Duh, sleeping?"

The man went to the phone, probably in order to call security.

"I'm a friend of Dr Cuddy's," Pete admitted.

Metal-rimmed Glasses stopped short and peered at him doubtfully. "Your name? Have you got any ID?"

Pete wordlessly handed over his driver's licence.

"Gregory House. Hmm, name sounds familiar. She may have mentioned you." He frowned at the ID and then at Pete. "Couldn't you have cleared this with security?" he finally asked.

"It was a spontaneous decision," Pete said. "It's not like _anyone_ had much advance notice."

"True, true. Still, it's very irregular."

"Can I go back to sleep now?" The clock on the wall showed 8:30 a.m. He could go check on Wilson, but there was a point to be made and territory to be defended if he was to be comfortable at the hospital the next few weeks or so.

"Actually, I want to work here now," the little man said. "I'm her stand-in: I'm Arthur Rubinstein, former dean of this hospital – and I'll be here every other day until Dr Cuddy has recovered." As though to sweeten the bitter pill he added, "The phone will be ringing all morning; you won't find it very pleasant here."

A strategic retreat was clearly indicated.

He was on the way to the ICU when his phone rang. The number on the display was Lisa's landline. He supposed he had to take the call.

"Hello, is that Pete? This is Louisa, Lisa's neighbour."

"Yeah?"

"That cleaning lady of yours, the Polish one, brought Rachel over last evening, but she couldn't tell me what was going on, while Rachel told me the strangest story imaginable. She said Lisa was getting her _liver_ removed or something."

Louisa waited, expecting some sort of response from him. He chose not to oblige. What did he care whether Louisa's source was reliable or not?

"Well, I just couldn't believe that," Louisa continued undaunted, "because as far as _I_ know, you need your liver in order to survive, so I tried to phone Lisa, but she isn't answering her phone, so then I phoned Lisa's sister …"

Oh, fuck! He had a vision of bumping into Julia Cuddy in the corridors of Philadelphia Central or, even worse, Julia turning up on Lisa's doorstep with her husband in tow while he was minding Rachel.

"… and she didn't know a thing about it! So I figured Rachel must have got it wrong, and Lisa is hosting some sort of liver conference. What's the correct term, 'heptatology'? But Rachel insists that Lisa will be in the hospital for a week and that you are taking care of Rachel for the rest of the week, so I thought I'd phone you – it's a good thing Lisa has the number stored in her phone, because Rachel didn't have it – and find out what's going on. _Is_ this some kind of liver conference that Lisa has to attend? She could have told me, you know. It's not that I mind looking after Rachel for a night or two, but if it's any longer than that, maybe it would be better if Julia took over."

He found his voice again. "No, no, that's fine. I can take care of her."

"Are you sure? It's not that easy. Sometimes she needs help with intimate things, if you know what I mean …"

"I'm a doctor; I can catheterise her if necessary."

"Well, I don't know. It doesn't seem fitting, you know, leaving a little girl alone with a man who isn't a member of the family, and I really don't know …"

"Lisa would hardly have left her with me if she didn't trust me," he pointed out, registering for the first time the full extent of Lisa's trust in him.

"I'd rather I talked to her about it," Louisa said with determination.

He felt like shooting her to the moon. Then again, she had a point.

"Fine, I'll tell her to call you," he said.

"So is this a conference or is Lisa …?"

He quickly disconnected the call. Let Lisa deal with her; hopefully she'd see the need to keep her sister in the dark for the time being and tell Louisa as little as possible.

At the ICU Dr Liu immediately came over when she spotted him. "He still doesn't want to see you," she said.

He kept his face blank, as though this piece of information didn't bother him. (And it didn't. Why should it? The liver transplant hadn't changed anything, after all. He was still the guy who had drugged Wilson and dragged him off to hospital against his will.)

"But," Dr Liu continued, "he has consented to let you see his medical files and all test results. He said you'd hack into his medical records anyway, so he'd spare us the embarrassment of having to explain to him how it was that our hospital security was so slipshod. I'll get you his file."

He nodded, following her as she went to the nurses' station to get the file and plucking it out of her hands without a comment.

So far, everything was fine. He allowed himself a brief moment of hope. Of course, it could all still go terribly wrong. They had no idea how his immune system would react to the stress of dealing with a foreign organ while it was still reeling from the effects of the chemo.

"I need regular updates," he said, moving his finger down the blood values to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

"Sure."

He'd expected token resistance, something along the lines of, 'You'll have to come in and get them,' or 'As long as Dr Wilson consents,' not this quiet acquiescence. He peeked at her from behind the file.

"He'll come round," she said.

He didn't need to be patronised. Slamming the file down on the nurses' desk he left.

Lisa's room was sequestered in a corner of a wing that could, for all practical purposes, have been a geriatric one – she lowered the average age of the wing's patients substantially. Although she couldn't have been there for more than six hours, she already had four vases of flowers, two teddy bears, and a box of chocolates. He grabbed the box as he sat down in a chair by her bedside and opened it, making a show of selecting one.

"I'm feeling totally shitty, but thank you for asking," Lisa said pointedly.

He popped three chocolates into his mouth and munched them noisily.

"They're going to make me get up and walk this evening," she continued. "It hurts already when I as much as yawn; that'll kill me!"

"Drama queen!" he mumbled through a mouthful of nougat. These chocolates were excellent.

"Gee, thanks!" She finally noticed what he was doing. "Hey, I wanted to keep those for Rachel. When are you bringing her?"

Oh, yes, he'd almost forgotten about that. "After school tomorrow?" he suggested, looking pointedly at the mess of lines and drains trailing from her bed.

"Did you reach Louisa? Was everything okay last night?" she asked next.

"Sort of. She wants to talk to you."

Lisa sighed. "Could you pass me my phone please? It's in my purse. Oh, and I need some things from home: my charger and my glasses – they're in the top drawer of my nightstand. And there's a book on it …"

"Make a list," he said, reaching over to angle her purse from the shelf next to him. He dug around in it, checking through the contents even though the phone was prominently on top of the pile of things in the main compartment. It contained the usual stuff: a compact, a lipstick and an eyeliner, a tampon, a handkerchief, a small bottle of disinfectant. A wallet with a bit of cash and an assortment of cards. No sign of any medication – good! He handed her the phone. "By the way, Louisa went and phoned your sister."

She looked at him, perplexed. "Why'd she do that?"

"Because …" He scratched the stubble on his chin. "… I may have been somewhat cryptic in the note I left for her, and she couldn't make sense of what Rachel told her. She believes you're hosting a conference on hepatology."

"Note? What note? What conference? Oh, never mind!"

"You might want to phone your sister and make sure she stays away. "

"That's going to be impossible," Lisa said. She thought for a moment. "But I doubt she'll want to see Wilson. Just keep away from my room when she's here, and you'll be fine. Oh god, I hope she doesn't bring my mom! I don't think I can deal with her at the moment."

While she scrolled through her contacts and dialled, he got up, popped more chocolates into his mouth, then took the box and tipped the rest of the chocolates into the pocket of his jacket.

"Hey, I _said_ I wanted those for Rachel!" Lisa protested, pointing an accusing finger at him and grimacing in pain at the sudden movement she'd made with her arm.

"The box is very pretty too," he said, putting it back on her bedside table. "She'll like it."

"Hello, Louisa. Thanks _so much_ for taking Rachel. … No, Rachel was almost right; I donated a lobe of my liver. It's no big deal, just a routine operation," Lisa lied glibly, "but you know how it is: they insist on keeping you in hospital so you can't sue them for negligence afterwards."

A good time to leave. Flowers for Tanja might be a good idea; she hadn't been happy at having to be at his disposal at such short notice. He grabbed one of the vases on his way out.

" … He said he'd look after Rachel? … No, no, if he _wants_ to do it, it's fine! …"

* * *

"You've got a visitor, Dr Wilson!"

Wilson opened his eyes. Everything was hazy; it took him a few seconds to focus on the nurse, who was smiling cheerfully. Behind her was Lisa in a hospital gown, hanging on to an IV pole with another nurse supporting her. Lisa sat down (or rather, collapsed) on the chair next to his bed.

"Thank you," she said to the nurse. "Hello, James." She leaned forward to take his hand.

"Don't hesitate to call us if you need anything," one of the nurses said. "Oh, and Dr Cuddy? It would be better if you didn't kiss him."

Cuddy, like the nurses, was wearing a face mask, which made PDAs complicated. But he and Cuddy weren't much into hugging and kissing each other anyway.

"I'll control myself," Cuddy said coolly. The nurses nodded and left.

"How are you doing?" she asked next, giving his hand a squeeze.

"I … don't know." He hadn't felt too bad after waking from the procedure, but a few hours ago his pain level had rocketed, so they'd upped the morphine. Now his abdomen throbbed with pain and his brain was fuzzy from the pain killers they'd put him on. "I've got your liver."

"Yes."

"Why?" He couldn't for the life of him think of a good reason why Cuddy would compromise her health for the sake of a man whose cancer was probably incurable.

"Because we couldn't get a donor liver for you. You don't qualify." Cuddy was brief and to the point as usual. Except that her answer wasn't to the point. It explained why he hadn't obtained a regular donor liver; it didn't explain why he'd gotten hers.

"Did House talk you into this?"

"I knew what I was doing," she said. She added with a grimace, "Although I did underestimate the discomfort it would bring with it. I swear, I never knew that a fifty yard corridor could be so long. I hope they get me a wheelchair for the trip back to my room."

"I … didn't want this," he said.

She leaned forward to clasp his hand with both of hers. "It's okay," she said. "I know you would never have asked this of me. In some way, knowing that you'd never have asked made the decision easier for me."

That wasn't what he meant. He meant that he hadn't wanted a transplant. He hadn't wanted anything that required hospitalisation, and for a good reason. Now he had a donor liver in addition to his tumour, and if one didn't kill him the other would. The odds of ever getting out of here, of dying on his own terms instead of those of his attending, had sunk so far that no sane person would take the bet.

That, however, wasn't something he could say to the person who had just allowed a bunch of surgeons to carve a substantial chunk out of her liver for his sake, so he squeezed her hand back. Hopefully she'd interpret this as appreciation of her sacrifice, because although his brain was sluggish, he was fully aware that it _was_ a sacrifice on her part, not an imposition. Cuddy had her fair share of negative attributes (including unfounded optimism and a tendency to make rash decisions), but riding rough-shod over patient wishes wasn't _her_ defining character trait. No, someone else held a monopoly on that particular vice.

He wanted to throw something at someone – at House, to be precise – but at the moment he could barely breathe comfortably, let alone raise an arm in anger. He withdrew his hand instead and tried to sit up, but gave up immediately when a bolt of pain seared through his body.

He'd die without ever seeing his child. He'd never hold him or maybe her in his arms. Hell, chances were that he'd never find out whether he had a son or a daughter. He'd die in this hellhole of a hospital without knowing whether his kid was healthy.

"Amy," he croaked. "I want to see Amy."

Cuddy's hand flew to her mouth. "I forgot about Amy," she confessed with a look of consternation.

He couldn't blame her. He must have crashed fast after being admitted to the hospital: everything that had happened before the transplant was a misty haze. He vaguely remembered being in the ICU and getting blood drawn, and people milling around him, but that was about it.

"Will you ask her to drop by, please?" The least he owed Amy was a goodbye.

Cuddy bit her lip. "That might be awkward. I told the transplant committee that we're a couple."

Wait – she what?

She gave him a wry smile. "That's why I'm afraid we'll have to hold hands every now and then. And … do call me Lisa whenever anyone is around. I'll call you James."

Sheesh, this was as crazy as calling House 'Pete', and probably for the same reason: it was a lie. House wasn't 'Pete' just because he'd conveniently erased his memory; the past existed, no matter whether he remembered it or not – as his _House Smash!_ spree of the preceding days proved. Now that he'd gotten what he wanted, he had probably reverted to his bland Banner persona, but Wilson wasn't fooled, oh no! He was glad that he, at least, was still 'Wilson' to everyone, because _he_ wasn't a part of this ridiculous alternate universe where a different name changed everything. If House and Cuddy chose to pretend that calling each other 'Pete' and 'Lisa' erased the drama that had ended in collapsed houses and crippled kids, then that wasn't his headache. But he wasn't prepared to deny his past, the good, the bad or the ugly. And he sure as hell wasn't going to allow House to pretend that he was just another of his patients over whom he could ride rough-shod. They'd known each other for decades, and no matter whether House could remember those years or not, he had an obligation towards him – as a _friend_.

Cuddy, oblivious to his thoughts, continued, "We should keep up the pretence until you're released. But I'm sure I can explain the situation to Amy."

He hoped so. Amy wasn't always reasonable. She tended to react badly to stress, and there was no denying that she'd been stressed recently, not only by the pregnancy and the hormonal changes in her body, but also by his initial refusal to get treatment. As it slowly dawned on her that she'd have to raise the child without his help, she'd gotten more and more distant. He couldn't blame her: what was the use of investing emotionally in someone who wouldn't be around much longer? If she chose to save her strength for her child ( _their_ child), he was the last person to object. But it would be nice to get closure, to see the slight swell of her belly, maybe get a look at the latest ultrasound, and possibly feel the child kick against his hand before he left this world.

"And the transplant committee believed you?" he asked skeptically.

She shrugged. "Why not? We've known each other for years, and you've been around a lot recently. I told them that you are on the verge of moving to Philadelphia and already on the lookout for a job here. It's a good thing, though, that I didn't date anyone from the hospital recently," she added as an afterthought. "That would have blown large holes in my story."

"You – date?"

"Sure," she said smoothly, "every now and then."

"Oh." She'd told him once that she'd more or less stopped dating after the car incident with House, and he had assumed that her second foray into dating House would make her even less inclined to give the male sex another chance. It seemed that the opposite was the case. "Will this …," he waved his hand weakly between them, "make things awkward for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "Goodness, no! When I say 'dating', I mean that I've gone out with guys a few times, but it's never been a great success." She twirled a lock of hair meditatively between her fingers. "I just don't have the patience for that sort of thing any longer: being on my best behaviour, smiling politely, and pretending I like the restaurants they drag me to."

"But you're good at that sort of thing – you used to do it with donors all the time."

"Yeah, and I still do. But I don't want to have to do it in the little spare time I have. When I go out, I want it to be _fun_ , not another extended business dinner where I have to mind my step if I want to get lucky. There seems to be a secret code to dating, and I haven't hacked it yet. But if guys can't take who I am on the first date, how will they put up with me once the thrill of the unknown has faded?"

He would have chuckled if he could have done so painlessly. Cuddy was right; dating was a complicated ritual. The way to be successful wasn't in trying to manipulate the ritual in order to influence the outcome. Success lay in enjoying the ritual for itself, independent of the outcome. Maybe that was his problem: he got so involved in the different moves – choosing the right venues for dates, making sure to phone his date within three days after every rendezvous (but not much earlier so she wouldn't feel stalked), giving her thoughtful little gifts, listening to her problems – that he tended to lose track of the fact that his dates weren't people with whom he'd want to spend more than one evening a week, much less the rest of his life.

His eyes must have fallen shut, because he sensed rather than saw Cuddy rise from his bedside. He supposed he should say something – thank her for her visit or for her liver once again – but his lips felt sticky and heavy, as though resisting this exercise in hypocrisy. He heard the squeak of the IV pole's wheels, Cuddy's steps dragging across the floor, a sharp intake of breath as she slid open the door to his room, and then low confabulations with the nurse. He tuned out the background noise, returning to his own thoughts.

Would he be wanting to spend the rest of his life with Amy if she hadn't gotten pregnant? Probably not. Amy and he hadn't even dated in the true sense of the word. They'd hung out together a few evenings after work, because Amy hadn't wanted to be alone and neither had he. He'd only just gotten his diagnosis, he'd relapsed, and he'd fooled himself into believing that his drinking was social, because he'd been doing it in Amy's company. Heaven only knew what had possessed Amy to sleep with him, an ageing, mournful alcoholic, but chances were that she'd been three sheets to the wind too.

But it could work, _they_ could work. This time he had an incentive to do more than the other times. This time there would be no evading unpleasant situations by submerging himself in his work or pretending that House needed him, because it wasn't just about 'him  & her' anymore: there was an 'it' in the middle, a little person who needed him more than a woman ever could.

If there was a 'this time'.


	21. Juggling Act

Tanja was already in her coat and shoes when Pete reached the apartment.

"I said _nine_ , not ten past. If I'd meant ten past, I'd have said so."

The flowers didn't mollify her, so he told her a sob story about how Wilson had flat-lined just as he was getting ready to leave the hospital. He'd need a better story tomorrow; Tanja was a nurse, after all, and wouldn't buy the kind of bullshit that Lisa was selling Louisa.

"The woman who dropped her off after school said a lot of things that I didn't understand," Tanja added.

"Did she realise that you didn't understand her?"

Tanja shrugged.

By the time he remembered the Russian word for moron the 'moment' was over, so he merely said, "Next time, give her a pen and some paper, so she can leave me a note."

Maybe Tanja wasn't the best solution to his problem. _To Lisa's problem_ , he corrected himself. Except that it wasn't really her problem. He'd thrust this situation upon her and he'd said he'd fix it, at least as far as Rachel was concerned.

"Is she asleep?" he asked.

Tanja nodded. "Same time tomorrow?" she asked.

"Yes. No, wait! There was something about …" He had no idea what the Russian word for 'physiotherapy' was, so he substituted, "Gymnastics, exercises." He went to the pin board in the kitchen, remembering that Rachel's schedule hung there. Lo and behold: 'Physio' was entered neatly on Tuesday and Friday afternoon at four p.m., but there was no clue as to where it was or how she got there. He'd have to ask Rachel how it worked.

"I'll phone you," he told Tanja.

He helped himself to leftovers, some kind of dumpling with a zesty filling. Then he settled down in front of the television with beer and chips. It was around one a.m. when he heard sounds from the hall. He leaned forward, grabbed the DVD-player remote, and switched the player off – only just in time. Rachel appeared in the living room in her pyjamas, wide awake. She stared at the TV with interest.

"What are you watching?"

He squinted at the screen – he'd been too bothered about getting his porn off the screen to worry about what might be showing on the television. It looked innocuous enough; it was a broadcast of some stage performance. Opera, to be exact. Verdi or Puccini or something like that, he guessed.

"Pete, what are you watching?" Rachel asked, impatient now.

He listened for a few seconds. " _Rigoletto_ ," he said.

"Is it a musical?" Rachel asked, wheeling herself into the living room.

"Yeah, but without the catchy tunes." It shouldn't take long before she got bored and took off for bed.

But Rachel refused to oblige. "I like their costumes." She pitched herself out of the wheelchair onto the couch in an inelegant but practiced move. "Can I have some chips?"

He handed her the bag wordlessly.

"They don't talk at all; they just sing," Rachel observed. Then, "I can't understand them."

"That's because they're singing in Italian."

She digested that. "So how do you know what's going on? Or is it like ballet, where you have to know the story?"

"Shouldn't you be in bed?"

She ignored him. "So what's going on? Oh, I know that music! That's the deodorant ad."

"Does your mom allow you to watch television in the middle of the night?"

"She doesn't watch television in the middle of the night. She reads, so if I wake up I'm allowed to read."

"So go read."

"But _you're_ watching TV!"

Her meaning was clear. As long as he sat here in front of the screen, she felt entitled to do so too. He stretched out his hand for the chips, which she gave him without resistance. He huffed in resignation and watched what was going on, trying to remember the plot. They were nearing the final denouement, he figured.

" _She_ is in love with the duke, the guy wearing red and gold. That hunchback is her dad, and he's trying to make her see sense."

"Doesn't the duke love her?"

"No, he just pretended to." Or maybe he believed he did, but he didn't really.

"Oh, because he wanted to kiss her," Rachel said wisely. "What are they doing now?"

"They're spying on the duke. Her father wants to show her that the duke, uh, kisses all sorts of women, not just her."

"Oh, and now the duke is flirting with that other woman, right? The daughter's gonna be so angry with the duke for kissing that other woman, isn't she?"

"No, she stays stupid." Like Wilson regarding hospitalisation.

She cocked her head, listening intently. Finally she said, "They're all singing different songs, aren't they?"

"It's a quartet. Each singer has his own melody and libretto – that's what they call the lyrics – but the melodies intertwine, wind around each other."

"Okay, shush! I wanna listen," Rachel admonished him. Her attention span when listening to explanations was limited to thirty seconds. She stared at the TV intently, tipping and turning her head from side to side without letting the screen out of her sight. He suppressed a smile of amusement when he realised that she was trying to separate the four melody strands acoustically. With a television that size and no Dolby Surround she didn't stand a chance.

When the quartet was over she said, "That was kinda clever, giving each of them their own song, 'cause it was about something different for all of them, wasn't it? The duke was flirting, that other woman was going all, _Get your hands off of me!_ on him, the girl was sad, and the dad … was mad. It was different and still the same song."

Different perspectives, different agendas. Life was like that.

Rachel fidgeted. "What happens next?"

"Dad pays someone to kill the duke; daughter finds out and gets _very_ stupid."

"Huh?"

"She switches places with the duke and gets herself killed instead."

She digested that. "Oh, that's sad. But I guess it would be sad too if the duke died."

He looked at her down his nose. "Why? He's a jerk."

"Yeah, but she loves him."

"Doesn't make him less of a jerk." Why, again, was he arguing with an eight year old?

Rachel took the bag of chips from him. "She'd still be sad if he died, so it would be a sad story. … I could invent a new ending for it. I like writing new endings for stories when they end all stupid. I wrote a new ending for _Charlotte's Web_ after Mom read it to me."

A _Rigoletto_ fan fiction. _This_ was what the world had long been waiting for!

"You wanna read my ending for _Charlotte's Web_?"

He shuddered. "No – but I'm sure Wilson will love it."

Rachel brightened. "Really?"

"Sure. He must be bored in hospital, and he'll love a new story." That'll teach you to shut me out, Wilson!

"Okay. And I'll also write … what was this one called again?"

"Rigoletto."

"I'll also write a Rigolotoe story." She pulled herself back into her wheelchair, unlocked it, and turned it around.

"Wait!"

She stopped.

"Why did you get up in the first place?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Just did. I often wake up during the night."

He'd noticed _that_ already. "It wasn't because you needed the bathroom?"

"Don't think so," she said, but he could hear the indecisiveness in her voice.

He got up heavily. "Bathroom it is," he said with false cheer.

"I can do it myself!"

He looked down at her stubborn face and said, "Suit yourself. Lemme check whether everything is there." He went ahead and opened the door to the bathroom that she used. Lisa must have had it completely refitted; everything from the washbasin to the soap dispenser was wheelchair accessible, the toilet had a special seat and a grab rail mounted next to it, the shower was roll-in, with a shower seat and grab rails. Next to the toilet were dispensers for gloves and antiseptic solution. He couldn't see any catheters, but he could make an educated guess: the cupboard under the washbasin. Bingo!

"Wash and disinfect your hands, and then I'll leave you to it," he said.

She frowned at him, proving that he was wise to supervise the cleansing process, but did as she was told.

"Disinfect your girly parts and call me if you need help," he said before closing the bathroom door behind him. He leaned against the wall, wondering what he'd gotten himself into.

* * *

The door bell was ringing. And ringing. And _still_ ringing.

He raised his head and yelled, "Wilson, go get the door!"

Silence. Then the door bell jangled _again_. Where was Wilson? … Whose bed was he in anyway?

And then he remembered. He sat up, hopped to the door of the guest room on his remaining leg, opened it and yelled, "Hang on a sec, I'm coming!" The ringing stopped, mercifully. He looked down at himself: pyjama pants and a T-shirt. It would have to do. He grabbed his crutches and went to open the door.

Outside stood a young woman of about twenty. "Oh!" she said when she saw him. "I'm Chrissy. I've come to take Rachel to school."

He turned back into the apartment, hollering, "Rachel!" To Chrissy he said, "You can come in."

"Isn't she ready?" she asked.

He shrugged; he had no idea. There was no sign of Rachel. "Rachel," he called again.

"Where's Dr Cuddy?" Chrissy asked.

"Not here," he said tersely.

Rachel came out of her bedroom still in pyjamas, rubbing her eyes blearily.

"Oh, my goodness," Chrissy said. "She isn't even awake yet! Rachel, we have to leave in five minutes."

"What's the time?" Rachel asked.

"Twenty to eight," Chrissy said, staring at Pete accusingly.

No one had told him that he had to wake Rachel.

"Come on, let's get you dressed," Chrissy said to Rachel, indicating that she should turn her wheelchair around and go back into her bedroom.

"But I haven't had any breakfast. Have you made pancakes?" Rachel asked Pete.

Sorry – again?

"There's no time for that, Rachel," Chrissy said, to Pete's immense relief. "I'll get you something on the way."

"I haven't been to the bathroom yet either."

"Then go quickly!" Chrissy tapped her foot impatiently.

"It takes a long time though."

Chrissy didn't get it, but he did. Rachel meant her bowel programme. "Skip the poop party this morning," he said, eager to have this disruption moved outside his sphere of influence. Chrissy frowned at his choice of words.

Rachel looked close to tears. "But then it'll all come out in school!"

Chrissy glanced at the clock in the hallway. "Look, if we don't get moving now …"

Rachel's face crumbled. "I can't," she wailed.

Chrissy turned to him. "I have to be in class in thirty-five minutes. If she doesn't come with me now, I'll be late!"

"And _I_ care, because?" he said.

Chrissy's mouth tightened. "Because I'm paid to take her to school, not to get her ready and do … whatever needs to be done in the mornings, while I miss my class. She's ready in five minutes, or I'm leaving without her."

Pete looked at Rachel. There was no way she'd be ready in five minutes, even if they skipped every form of ablution and he made her a sandwich to eat on the way. And she'd definitely have a melt-down if he tried to force her out of the door: her point that she'd have a crap catastrophe in school was a valid one. If she didn't empty her bowels, they'd do so by themselves.

"Leave her here; I'll take her to school once she's ready."

"Are you sure …?" Chrissy asked, hesitating.

"Do you have a better idea?" he interrupted brusquely.

"No. No, I guess not. Well, see you tomorrow."

When she had left, the full horror of what he'd let himself in for struck him: he'd have to get up at an ungodly hour to cajole or coerce an eight year old morning grouch with mobility issues into going through an extensive and strenuous morning routine – for a whole week! He hobbled into the kitchen, switched on Lisa's coffee machine, and sat down at the table, his head in his hands.

"I'm sorry," said a small voice from the door.

He looked up. Rachel sat there looking chagrined. "Not your fault, kid," he said. He should have figured that an eight year old wouldn't miraculously turn herself out all spick and span for school without some sort of input on his part.

"Do I _have_ to go to school?"

"I need coffee. Then we can talk."

He put a mug under the spout and pressed the button. The machine whirred as it ground the beans. When the mug was filled, he added milk and lots of sugar. He drank slowly, savouring the taste (Lisa's coffee machine played in a completely different league from the bog-standard percolator in the first-floor apartment), repressing all misgivings about what awaited him during the course of the day. After about five minutes he was ready to face the day and the challenges thereof.

Rachel was still sitting at the door, waiting for him to say or do something. He rose heavily. "Let's get cracking," he said. "What's for breakfast?"

"Can you make pancakes?"

Yes, he could, but he didn't feel like it. "How about eggs and bacon?" he suggested. He'd stocked the fridge downstairs liberally with both before starting Wilson on his chemo; since he hadn't eaten there for days there had to be some left. Rachel nodded doubtfully. "Okay, I'll get the stuff from downstairs while you start your daily ablutions."

"Huh?"

"Go take a dump!"

"Ah, okay."

Ninety minutes later Rachel was finally fed, cleaned and dressed. "Can I go and see Mom at the hospital?" she asked.

"Midgets – that's you – are only allowed to visit from four till eight," Pete said. This was actually true, although he wasn't above bending the truth a bit to suit his convenience.

"Do I really have to go to school?" she said again. "If I go now, I'll be in trouble for coming late."

"If you don't go, you'll also be in trouble." And _I'll_ be in trouble, he added silently.

"I won't be a bother," Rachel continued hopefully. "I won't disturb you if you have to work."

She didn't want to go; he didn't want to take her there, and above all, he didn't want to waste time explaining to TPTB at her school why she was two hours late. On the other hand he didn't want to keep an eye on her the rest of the day.

"How does that physio thing of yours work?" he asked.

"Mom picks me up from school and takes me to the hospital."

"Which hospital?"

"Mom's hospital," Rachel said as though stating the obvious. "She goes back to work while I do physio. Then, when she's done, we go home."

Okay, that was simple – the first thing so far that proved to be easier than expected. He came to the next point on his agenda: "Your mother has given me a list of things she needs …" He pulled out his phone and scrolled to the list. "Her bathrobe. Her contact lens fluid …"

Rachel was already gone.

He'd probably have been twice as quick without Rachel getting in his way with her wheelchair or insisting she could get at things that were way out of her reach, but it kept her busy and gave him time to go through Lisa's drawers and inspect the contents.

"You think she's gonna need _that_ in the hospital?" Rachel said doubtfully, looking at the lingerie and underwear that he'd spread out on Lisa's bed.

"I'm doing negative sorting: the things I take out of the drawers stay here, the stuff I leave inside the drawers gets packed," Pete improvised.

"Sounds like a crappy method," Rachel opined.

"Sounds like someone is using naughty words."

"Who's talking?" Rachel demanded. When that elicited no reaction from him she added, "Pot, meet kettle!"

He bet she'd picked that one up from him. "Go find a pair of sneakers," he said. "And you can pick a perfume for her." Much use that would be since Lisa wasn't allowed to shower, but hey, if it made her happy …

While Rachel, testing every flaçon in sight, spread a nebulous haze through the room, he went through the music on Lisa's iPod.

Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner (he had a pleasant vision of Lisa shaking her booty to 'Private dancer'), Bryan Adams: mainstream rock for someone who had been a teen in the eighties – no surprises there.  
Janis Joplin, Nirvana, Amy Winehouse: a hint of pseudo-rebelliousness.  
Some Beethoven, Carmina Burana, Tchaikovsky: light classical music, the equivalent of chick lit.  
Mumford and Sons: the type of bland fare he'd expected.  
Wait, Professor Longhair? Now that was a pleasant surprise.  
There were a few playlists: _Yoga_ (esoteric New Age stuff), _Running_ (she'd probably yanked that list from the internet), _Rachel_ (oh, good grief!).

"Hey, you listen to Big Time Rush and Rihanna?"

"Yeah, sure! They're cool." Rachel said. "This one or this one?" she asked, holding up two bottles of perfume. "They both smell good."

"Pack both," he said. He scrolled further down her playlist. " _The Nutcracker_?"

"I've seen it three times already. It's lovely! I wish I could dance like that," Rachel said wistfully. "I want to dance like the Sugar Plum Fairy."

Yeah, and he wished he could fly.

"Mom says maybe one day I'll be able to walk."

"What spinal cord injury level do you have?"

"T10. If I do my exercises, maybe I can walk one day."

With a frame or leg braces, for short distances – and only if she was lucky. But it wasn't his job to point that out.

Rachel wheeled her chair to the bed and placed the perfume in the carry-all that Pete had found in the hallway closet. "And then I can learn ballet," she said, staring at him challengingly, probably reading his doubts from his facial expression. "Mom says that there's a lot of research into something that sends electric currents into your spine so it learns how to make you walk."

He'd read about that, but no matter what improvements medical research came up with, learning ballet would be beyond her capabilities.

He got up. "I need to check up on Wilson. Get rollin'!" He waved his hands towards the door.

Rachel grinned triumphantly. He narrowed his eyes at her – he wasn't desperate to take her to school, but there was no need for her to know that. He'd been foolish to let her badger him into allowing her to sleep at home, but that could be remedied.

"I'll drop you off at school on the way," he said casually, picking up the car keys.

"It's past eleven," Rachel said. "If you bring me in now, it'll be too late for you to go to the hospital, 'cause you'd have to return almost straightaway to pick me up again."

Her cockiness grated on his nerves. He waved his hand magnanimously. "I'm prepared to stretch myself if it'll further your education. Unless …"

Rachel frowned. "Unless what?"

"Unless you spend the night at Louisa's place. The next _two_ nights," he amended quickly. The stress of the morning must have affected his bargaining skills.

Rachel chewed on her lower lip, looking phenomenally like her adoptive mother. "How are you going to pick me up?" she asked.

"With the car," he said, the _non sequitur_ causing him to wonder whether she wasn't the brightest bulb in the drawer.

"'S not what I meant. Are you on the pick-up list? Because if you aren't, they won't let you take me. And Chrissy can't pick me up on Tuesdays, 'cause she's got classes. That's why Mom does it herself."

He stared at her.

She shrugged, her cheeks dimpling. "Let's go to the hospital," she said.

It wasn't half as bad as he'd thought it would be. He'd hardly arrived at the ICU, Rachel in tow, when one of the nurses whisked her off to the paediatrics playroom. An hour later another nurse offered to take Rachel to the cafeteria for lunch during her own lunch break. Although he managed to hide his gratitude for the offer behind a snarky comment that featured 'pity for cripples' and 'unfulfilled mothering instincts', he couldn't keep his jaw from dropping in genuine surprise when the nurse, instead of kicking him in the balls like he deserved, not only took Rachel as offered, but also brought him back a burger with fries and a soda, unasked.

"Dr Cuddy must be really popular," he muttered to the head nurse, his mouth full of fries.

"Oh, I think it's your personal charm," she rejoined, arching a brow at him.

He snorted.

She looked at him over the screen of her computer. "You're quite a handful, but we all admire your dedication. You've lost him to Dr Cuddy, and yet you're here every day, making sure he's okay, fighting with the doctors so that he gets the best possible care."

"Lost him?"

"Yes," the head nurse said, puzzled. Then she flushed. "Weren't you and Dr Wilson a couple before he got engaged to Dr Cuddy?"

"Who on earth told you that?"

She was bright red by now. "No one. I mean, we assumed that you and he …. because, well, he was refusing to see you, and then came the news that he and Dr Cuddy are engaged, so we thought there was a connection."

"You thought he's refusing to see me so Dr Cuddy doesn't go all green-eyed," he summarised.

The head nurse nodded.

He took a large bite of hamburger, turning this development over in his mind. As far as he could make out, it made no difference whether the ICU believed that he and Wilson used to do the dirty. He could, of course, point out that the person he'd dated was Lisa, not Wilson, but that was absolutely no one's business. Funny – he'd been worried that his former connection to Lisa and his past might be uncovered, which would have resulted in the nurses shunning him like a leper. Instead, he'd been labelled 'gay', so now he was everyone's darling. (Women were odd that way.) He was in two minds about that: it wouldn't improve his chances of getting into that D-cup nurse's panties (not that he had the time to hit on her as long as he was minding Rachel), but it induced the female nurses to treat him like one of their own and it got him any number of perks. So then, gay it was. He'd be happy to be gay for Wilson if it got him what he wanted.

He spent the next few hours watching cartoons with Rachel in the waiting area of the ICU before heading for Lisa's ward just before four.

"Mind her stomach: she's got a big, fat scar there and she won't appreciate you pounding on it," he said to Rachel. "And she won't be able to carry you or lift you out of the wheelchair."

"Yeah, yeah," Rachel said dismissively, only half listening.

How little his warnings had penetrated her skull became clear when she saw Lisa in her room, hooked to an IV and looking like death warmed over. Rachel stopped short, peering into the room.

"Is Mom gonna get well again?" she asked in a whisper, even though Lisa couldn't possibly hear them.

"She'll be fine. She should be able to walk around a bit; go in and tell her to take you to physio. Oh, and – you were in school and had lots of fun, the teacher praised you, lunch was disgusting, and …" He cast around in his mind for something that could have happened. "And Barry tried to copy from you, but you wouldn't let him."

"Who's Barry?"

"Isn't there anyone in your class called Barry?"

"Naaaa. That's a stupid name. _Matthew_ keeps trying to copy my sums."

"Okay, then Matthew copied your sums."

Rachel crunched up her nose. "Mom usually knows when I'm lying."

"Only when she's interested in knowing the truth. At the moment she wants to believe you went to school, so she'll believe you. In you go!"

He watched from outside as Lisa greeted Rachel and struggled to get up. Rachel babbled non-stop, seemingly oblivious to her mother's discomfort. It took them about ten minutes to make it out of the room, Lisa leaning heavily on the IV pole. A nurse came at a run when she saw Lisa leave her room.

"I'm taking Rachel to physio on the fourth floor," Lisa said.

"I don't think …," the nurse began.

"He'll go along," Lisa cut in, nodding in Pete's direction.

He made a show of looking behind him in search of the person whom Lisa meant, which made Rachel grin, but Lisa, looking anything but amused, crooked a finger at him.

Their pace was frustratingly slow, even with Lisa leaning on the wheelchair and him pushing her IV pole, and when they reached the physio centre she collapsed gratefully on a bench outside the treatment rooms saying, "Will you lift Rachel onto the table inside the second room, please? She can get changed into her sweats herself once she's up there, but she's supposed to be ready when the therapist comes."

He nodded and followed Rachel into the room, leaving the door open. Rachel parked the wheelchair in front of the therapy couch and turned to him expectantly, arms outstretched. He'd done this twice already today, heaving her in and out of the car, and it was no fun. He slid one arm under her legs and the other behind her back, lifting her out and up once she was clasping his neck firmly.

"Ufff," he said as he plonked her onto the table.

"My sweats are in that cubby hole," Rachel said, pointing to one of the walls.

He got the bag she pointed out and handed it to her. Then he looked over at Lisa. "You want to go in to watch her while she gets changed?" he called.

Out in the corridor, Lisa shook her head wearily. "She'll be fine – she has never fallen off the table."

He peered at Lisa. She obviously wasn't going to move. "Get changed," he said to Rachel, half turning away from her so that she wouldn't feel observed, but so he'd notice any untoward movement out of the corner of his eye. There were gymnastic balls of varying sizes in one corner of the room, so he sat down on one of them, bouncing up and down gently while juggling two, and then three spikey balls.

"Will you teach me how to juggle?" Rachel asked.

He stopped what he was doing to lean his chin on his hand in mock thought. "Lemme think. … No," he said. "Are you changed?"

She was. He dumped the balls next to her and hobbled out to Lisa, who was observing him with narrowed eyes.

"What?" he said, lowering himself onto the seat next to her. "You trust me to stay with your kid overnight, but not to watch her while she gets changed under your eyes?"

Lisa chuckled soundlessly. "I was watching _you_ , not guarding her. You're limping and your shoulder is acting up."

He was surprised she'd noticed, considering that her state was substantially worse than his. All that heaving first Wilson and then Rachel in and out of cars, beds and what-not had taken its toll. His stump was sore and his shoulder screamed bloody hell and damnation every time he moved his arm backwards or upwards. "Arthritis," he muttered. "It's no biggie."

"I _know_ you have arthritis," Lisa said. "You already had it when you still had your leg, but you refused to switch to a sensible cane or switch the cane to your left hand, which is what every physiotherapist at the hospital said you should do."

There was nothing to add to Lisa's personal version of, 'You're a stubborn ass and I always told you so', so he kept his mouth shut. The physiotherapist came rushing by, gave Lisa a quick wave and disappeared into the therapy room.

Lisa continued inexorably. "Are you taking anything for the pain?"

"You mean, like … Vicodin?" he asked, pulling his eyes wide open.

"Idiot! No, I mean something mundane and ordinary and below your dignity, like ibuprofen."

He _was_ taking ibuprofen (and it wasn't exactly helping), but he'd be damned before he let her meddle with his health.

She changed her position on the bench to face him, grimacing as she did so. "Look, pain's no fun …"

"Oh, really?"

Instead of yelling at him (which she normally did when he slapped her down), she leaned back and closed her eyes. "We have massage therapists at the hospital. I can write you a scrip." She opened her eyes again, giving him a sideway look. "You've never said no to massages."

He scratched his thumb through his stubble, contemplating her offer. Unlike Wilson, Lisa hardly ever referred to their common past, much less referenced it the way she'd just done twice. Like him, she preferred to pretend it didn't exist. Her present lack of inhibition could be down to the painkillers she was on, or maybe …

The stubble! He'd noticed long ago that she seemed disconcerted whenever she saw him unshaven, but he had put it down to disapproval of his scruffy state. A stupid mistake: Lisa tried to be immaculate herself (and was failing spectacularly at the moment), but she was hardly ever bothered when Rachel spilled food over herself or had toothpaste stains in her face or forgot to brush her hair, so it was unlikely that his failure to shave before ten a.m. (or four p.m., as it might be) fazed her.

No, it wasn't the fact that he was unkempt that bothered her; she was rattled by the memories that bubbled up whenever he turned up unshaven and rumpled. He'd seen photos of himself between infarction and amputation, most of them featuring a rakish three-day stubble and crumpled shirts. He examined himself: crumpled clothes, check; three-day stubble, check (okay, more like 'one-week beard', but still); messy hair, check.

As long as he was clean-shaven and dressed in ironed clothes, Lisa managed to distinguish between Peter Barnes and his evil alter ego, Gregory House. But now that he'd reverted (albeit unintentionally) to the bad boy look of former days and she was too numbed by painkillers to think clearly, old patterns were resurfacing. Lisa was having a flashback of sorts. If he didn't watch out, she'd go into panic mode.

But if he was careful, he might be able to touch her for some information about his past.

"Fine, write me a scrip," he said, as much to keep her happy and gabby as in the hope of getting pain relief. "Anything else that helped?"

"Hot baths. _Long_ hot baths. You'd turn yourself into a prune."

That might have alleviated his arthritis to some extent, but by no stretch of imagination could massages and hot baths have dealt with the chronic pain stemming from his debridement.

"What medication did I take?"

She gave him a puzzled stare. "Hydrocodone. And then some more hydrocodone. You also tried oxycodone and methadone. Morphine for breakthrough pain." She twiddled with the top button of her gown, muttering, "At least, I _hope_ it was only for breakthrough pain."

"Yeah, yeah." He knew all that – it had been in the Mayfield files. "I mean when I was sober."

"Ibuprofen and the occasional muscle relaxant," she said.

"That was _all_?"

She shrugged. "That was all I knew about. You weren't taking Vicodin on the sly, in case you were wondering: you had regular screenings at the hospital which you always passed."

"What – even after I relapsed?"

"No, I called them off after your relapse." She flushed at his quizzical look. "There was no sense in screening you for 'secret' drug abuse when you were doing it openly."

"So what happened to all the pain while I was clean?"

"It was there – but you were distracted."

He frowned at her.

She twisted a lock of her hair. "You could – can – only focus on one thing at a time, so any distraction meant that you were able to shove your pain into some back corner of your mind. Wilson made an art form of distracting you: monster trucks, foosball, soaps. If it could catch and hold your attention when you were in pain, then it was a winner and Wilson would endure it stoically."

He remembered a conversation with Wilson a year ago. "So Wilson doesn't like monster trucks."

"I have no idea." Lisa waved a dismissive hand without raising her arm. "But he hated your soaps. And he went patient hunting more than once just to make sure you were occupied."

His mind conjured up an image of Wilson luring hapless patients into his lair for him, Pete (no, he should say 'House') to feed on.

Lisa continued, "According to Wilson, my sole duty as your boss was finding cases for you so you'd be busy. I think he only accepted our relationship because it diverted you."

A knot formed at the pit of his stomach. "So the pain wasn't real."

"What do you mean, it wasn't real?"

"If it could be combatted with ibuprofen and distractions, then it wasn't real!"

She blinked at him. "You seriously want my opinion on this?" He was silent, which she apparently interpreted as an affirmative. "I think that when you were on Vicodin it numbed your pain to the extent that you didn't realise when you exerted your leg too much. You'd pace around your office, you'd ride your bike, you'd go breaking and entering with your fellows, and every time you felt a twinge you'd pop another Vicodin so you could keep doing whatever it was you were doing." She rolled her hand illustratively. "When you were clean you _knew_ ibuprofen wouldn't as much as put a dent in your pain if you didn't watch out, so – you watched out. You hated it – leaving your bike at home in cold weather, taking long hot baths, doing physio regularly – and you pretended it didn't do much good, but I can only remember a few scattered incidents of breakthrough pain, whereas when you were on Vicodin …"

"Mo-om!" Rachel called.

The door to Room 2 opened and Rachel came out with her therapist.

"Dr Cuddy, I'm sorry to bother you with this while you're convalescing, but it is noticeable that Rachel has been neglecting her exercises. Her muscle tone has deteriorated considerably. She says she has a nurse taking care of her. If you could instruct her to do the exercises with Rachel …"

"Nurse," Lisa said blankly.

"Yeah, Tanja," Rachel said.

"Right," Lisa said, trying to focus. "Right. Tanja. … I need the instructions in …" She looked at Pete helplessly.

"Russian," he supplied.

"Right, Russian," Lisa said with more assurance.

" _Russian_?" the physiotherapist echoed.

"Is that a problem?" Pete said. "Or is adequate medical care restricted to anglophone patients?"

The physiotherapist bristled. "I don't know what your issue is, but …"

Lisa held up a tired hand. "I'm not up to this. Do you have pictograms?"

The physiotherapist huffed, turned on her heel, and riffled through the drawers of her desk. She came back with a chart that had pictures and instructions in easy English. "We give these to children. Maybe Rachel can explain them to her."

"I don't know any …," Rachel began.

"That'll be fine," Lisa interrupted smoothly, taking the chart and passing it straight on to Pete. "I'm sure Tanja can read enough English to cope with this."

"If not, Pete can do the exercises with me," Rachel suggested brightly.

"That," Lisa said with a malicious smile, "is a brilliant idea, honey."

Six days. Six days until Lisa came home and he could move back into the downstairs apartment. He'd download an app that kept track of the days – no, the hours! – and when his stint as monkey minder was over, he'd go to a bar and then to a nightclub and then … do all the things that guys did when they'd served their sentence and were released back into freedom.


	22. Phone Calls

When Rachel wheeled herself into the hospital room, Cuddy greeted her with a wave and a grimace. "Nana," she mouthed, pointing to the phone in her hand. Rachel grimaced back, comprehension on her smooth face.

"It's only been five days since the operation, Mom," Cuddy said, trying to keep the impatience she felt out of her voice. "It's normal to be in the hospital for a week, so I'm doing fine."

"When I got my hip done, I was released from the hospital after five days," her mother said.

"A liver donation is a _teensy_ bit different," Cuddy said. Why had Julia told their mother that she was in the hospital?

"I hope your doctors are competent. When I remember how they messed up my hip …"

"Yes, Mom, I'm _sure_ they know what they're doing." She needed to put an end to this conversation before her mother delved further into the hip replacement, a trip down memory lane that invariably brought up House's name:

" _That man was absolutely arrogant and obnoxious, but I have to admit that he was brilliant. He saved my life, I'll give him that, the_ gonif _! You were an idiot to dump him, Lisa. Men like that don't grow on trees. Yes, I_ know _it was a good thing you did dump him – I'd wring his neck with my own hands if I could –, but you didn't do it because he was a total, utter and complete_ meshugener _and a walking time bomb. You did it because nothing and no one is good enough for you."_

No, she didn't need a lecture on her shortcomings as a daughter, girlfriend or mother. "Oh, Rachel has come to visit me. I've got to go, Mom. … What?"

"I want to talk to my grandchild, dear."

"To Rachel?" Oh, no! The last thing she needed was her mother finding out who had been looking after her granddaughter for the last five days.

"Yes, obviously!"

Cuddy beckoned to Rachel. "Rachel, Nana wants to talk to you." She covered the speaker with her hand. "Try not to mention Pete; if Nana asks who's looking after you, just say it's Tanja." And there went another parental guideline, _Teach your child to be honest_ , down the drain.

"Sure, Mom," Rachel said. "I'm not stupid!"

No, she wasn't, and she'd realised very quickly that mentions of Pete were absolutely taboo in the Cuddy clan, but she was up against the Grand Inquisition here. She'd be squeezed dry without even noticing it. Hoping for the best, Cuddy handed the phone to Rachel.

Then she got up carefully, planning every movement in advance. Walking was still agony, much more than she'd thought it would be. She hadn't had time to give much thought to the long-term consequences of the operation before consenting to it, but during the course of the past five days she'd had more than enough time on her hands to worry about how she'd cope during the coming weeks, and at the moment the outlook was bleak. How was she going to care for Rachel when she was slowed down to a snail's pace and couldn't even lift a new-born, let alone an eight year old? All it would take was Rachel falling out of bed, and they'd be royally screwed. And that wasn't even taking into account that she wasn't allowed to drive a car for six weeks.

Managing Rachel was complicated at the best of times, as this week had shown. Cuddy had chosen to close her eyes to most of what was going on, but she was aware that Rachel's school attendance had been sketchy and that she wasn't getting enough sleep. At the moment she didn't have the strength to deal with those problems, but she'd have to think of a solution soon. Somehow, however, she didn't have the energy to tackle the problem and solve it.

"Yes, Nana, I'm doing fine," Rachel said. "Yes, I'm eating enough, really, Nana. … Yes, I'm eating my breakfast. … Huh? … I had eggs and bacon today."

Cuddy face-palmed mentally. _Pete, you idiot!_

Rachel looked confused. "But it was _bacon_ , not pork. … Oh, I didn't know that. … Umm, Tanja cooked breakfast, Nana. …. Tanja's the nurse who's looking after me. … Yeah, I'll give the phone back to Mom, okay? Mom, Nana wants to talk to you." She handed the phone back with alacrity.

"Yes, Mom," Cuddy said, resigning herself to a lengthy cross-examination.

"Lisa, your caregiver is giving your daughter pork," her mother said, censure in her tone.

"It's not going to kill her."

"Aren't you raising her kosher? I know her biological parents weren't Jewish, but …"

"Mom, we've talked about this before. I'm raising Rachel the way Julia raises her children." She hated it when her mother snuck in double digs in this manner, hinting that Cuddy was either a bad Jew or that she didn't care enough about Rachel to raise her the way she would if Rachel was her flesh and blood.

"No, you're not: she's eating pork!"

"It was a one-off, not a regular thing, and she didn't even know …"

Her mother had long ago perfected the art of backtracking in order to launch an attack from a different angle. "Don't prevaricate, Lisa. It's not about _what_ she eats or how often she does so. It's about instilling values, about raising her in the traditions of our nation."

Nation? _Our_ nation? Her mother had converted to Judaism when she'd gotten engaged to her father. She came from a long line of Presbyterians (or was it Lutherans?).

But her mother was on a roll now. "Why didn't you inform that caregiver of yours that we're Jewish?"

"Because it was all a terrible rush and I had my hands full apprising her of Rachel's basic health care issues," Cuddy lied expertly. Telling her mother (a) that she basically didn't know Tanja and (b) that Tanja didn't know enough English for them to communicate effectively would not strengthen her position. "It's not the end of the world, Mom. I'll explain to her later that bacon's off the menu."

"Was all this really necessary?" her mother asked, getting back to her original agenda, the reason she was making the call in the first place. "Your place is with your daughter, not donating body parts to some _putz_ who ruined his liver drinking …"

Cuddy took a deep breath. "Mom, Wilson didn't ruin his liver on purpose; it was the chemo, not alcohol. And I don't believe Rachel would be happier living one hundred percent kosher, but with Wilson dead. Look, I really have to go now."

"What terribly important appointment can you have when you're convalescing in a hospital?" her mother asked peevishly.

That one was easy to field. "Rachel wants to visit Wilson, and the ICU only admits visitors below the age of twelve between five and six p.m. So, I have to take her there now. I'll talk to you some other time, Mom." She ended the call, wondering for the umpteenth time whether she hadn't been happier in the months that she had been estranged from her parent.

"Come on, I'll take you to Wilson," she said to Rachel and walked stiffly to the door.

"You wanna push my wheelchair?" Rachel offered.

Ever since the operation she'd been misusing Rachel's wheelchair as a walker. "No, hon, I'm supposed to walk by myself today."

"I'm sorry about the bacon," Rachel said presently.

"It's no big deal. What did you have for dinner yesterday?" Cuddy asked, more because she wanted to divert Rachel from the 'Nana disapproves of bacon' issue than because she was interested.

"Tanja cooked some soup, but it was yuck-y," Rachel said, wrinkling her nose at the memory. "There was funny stuff swimming in it."

"Oh, dear!" Cuddy said absently.

"But Pete made garden pizza later," Rachel continued.

" _Later_?" Cuddy queried. "As in 'the middle of the night'?"

Rachel avoided her gaze. "Sort of."

"You had veggie pizza in the middle of the night?" The mind boggled! She'd reckoned with popcorn, chips, nachos, possibly even buffalo wings or Chinese takeaway, but she hadn't thought that Pete was inclined to cook in the middle of the night, let alone put together a healthy meal for a hungry kid.

"Not veggie pizza; _garden_ pizza. You crumble chocolate chip cookies into the bottom of a pan and put nutella on top – that's the sand and the mud. Then you put gummi worms on top of that and M &Ms in flower patterns and gummi bears – those are bugs – and …"

Oh, okay, that made more sense. Rachel would be constipated, but that wasn't her problem. Her mind wandered ahead to what awaited Rachel at the ICU.

"Rachel, Wilson isn't going to be looking good. He got a piece of my liver, and the immune system – that's the stuff that's responsible for fighting off sicknesses – doesn't like it when we stick other people's body parts into our bodies." (Oh dear, that was salaciously ambiguous. Pete would have a field day with that statement if Rachel quoted it to him.) "So it tries to fight the new liver. In addition, he's still fighting his cancer, so he isn't well. He's losing a lot of hair, and he hasn't eaten decently in ages, so don't be surprised that he's looking really, really …." She searched for a word that would convey Wilson's drastic appearance.

"Crappy," Rachel supplemented.

Cuddy decided that this wasn't a suitable moment for enforcing language issues. "Yes. And he won't be fit enough to talk much with you. Just … try not to bother him, okay?"

"Yeah, okay. I'll just read him my Wilbur story." Cuddy searched her mind, but only came up with a blank. "Mo-om, the story I wrote to give _Charlotte's Web_ a happy ending. You said it was really good!"

"Oh yes, of course. Yes, I'm sure he'll love it." Wilson could doze through that without having to do more than hum and haw at the appropriate places.

"Yeah, that's what Pete said too," Rachel said in a self-satisfied tone.

When they got to the ICU, she spotted Wilson in his room, but Pete was nowhere in sight.

"Didn't Pete bring you here?" she asked Rachel.

"Yeah, he did. And he said he was going to visit Wilson," Rachel confirmed.

Odd, that. But maybe Wilson was asleep and Pete hadn't wanted to disturb him. She walked over to the nurses' desk to announce their visit when she caught sight of Pete. He was seated behind the nurses' desk, playing on his phone.

"Is he sleeping?" Cuddy asked.

Pete didn't answer, his attention apparently on the candy he was trying to crush. "Nope," he finally said. "He won't see me."

Cuddy sighed. She'd thought this madness would be over now that Wilson must have realised that he'd have died without Pete's timely interference. Furthermore, she'd assumed that Pete visited Wilson whenever he dropped Rachel off at her room, because he never stayed. "You didn't tell me that …"

"Not your problem," Pete said brusquely.

"I'll talk to him," she said.

Pete's eyes slid away. She took that to mean he assented; besides, there wasn't much he could do to stop her from saying whatever she pleased. She gave her daughter a doubtful look; she'd rather not have Rachel witnessing how she ripped Wilson apart. Then she turned to the nurse on duty. "Would you mind watching her?"

"I'll take her down to the cafeteria, get her something to eat," Pete said, waving his hand vaguely towards the elevator as he got up.

Cuddy stared at him, trying to figure out the reason for his offer, but Pete didn't meet her eyes.

"Can't I see Wilson?" Rachel asked.

"Just … let me talk to him first," Cuddy said. "Pete can get you an ice cream."

Pete grinned knowingly. "Bribery, a staple of good parenting. You got some change?" He held out his hand.

Cuddy grimaced. She wasn't in the habit of taking her purse with her when she tottered to the ICU to visit Wilson. Besides, Pete had money; he just wasn't prepared to spend it if he could avoid it. The nurse on duty looked up, delved in her purse and handed Pete a few bills, which he pocketed without as much as a thank you. The whole transaction had an air of common-place routine.

"Let's go, crip," Pete said to Rachel.

"Peg-leg yourself," Rachel said without rancour.

Cuddy watched them leave, then she turned back to the nurses' desk. "I'll pay you back. How much did you give him?"

"That's okay; we all feed him," the nurse said.

Cuddy was nonplussed. Pete – no, House – had always scrounged off his fellows, but they'd never been particularly keen to support their well-earning boss. Wilson had borne it with grace, but Wilson had been his friend. She hoped the nurses weren't pampering Pete because they thought their dean expected anything of the sort. "Thanks," she said awkwardly. "I appreciate that."

The nurse nodded coolly. No, she definitely wasn't doing it for Cuddy, who couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something going on here that she wasn't aware of.

"Do you want to drop in on Dr Wilson now?" the nurse asked.

"Yes. How is he?"

The nurse checked on the computer. "Stable. Dr Reilly has put him on ciclosporin."

Cuddy nodded. It was what Pete had predicted.

She disinfected her hands, put on a face mask, and knocked on the door lightly before entering. Wilson lay in the bed, a gaunt figure against the white sheets. He was a mere shade of his former self, his cheeks caved in, his lips pale and bloodless, his hair thin and stringy with his scalp shining through.

"Hey," she said.

He turned his head towards her. "Hey," he answered, his mouth twitching in what was supposed to be a smile. "Walked here by yourself today?"

"Yes." She sat down next to his bed and took his hand. The gesture didn't come easily, but a PDA here and there would help to support her claim that Wilson was her boyfriend. To anyone watching from the outside they looked like a devoted couple. "Why aren't you talking to Pete?"

"Let it go, Lisa," Wilson said.

"You would have died!"

"I may still die, if not of liver failure, then of cancer. We have no idea whether the treatment shrank the tumour. See, this is exactly what I didn't want – to spend my remaining days hooked up to machines, being pumped full of pharmaceuticals and painkillers, and then dying a drawn-out, miserable death." He turned his head away from her. "I should be suing you."

"For treating you at my hospital?"

"You knew I didn't want this."

"And you know I didn't have a choice. You were unconscious, and Pete said you'd changed your mind about hospitalisation while I was gone," she retaliated, immensely grateful that Pete had had the sense to knock Wilson unconscious behind her back. She added pointedly, "Which didn't surprise me because it was the sensible thing to do."

She met his suspicious gaze head on; finally he dropped it, picking irritably at the blanket covering him instead. Inwardly, she let out a long sigh of relief. Maybe he wasn't up to his game as yet, weakened as he was, maybe he _wanted_ to be fooled into believing that she hadn't gone behind his back. Whichever it was, she didn't care.

"The sneaky bastard," Wilson muttered.

"You do realise he did this for you," she said.

"He did it because he is intrinsically incapable of accepting anyone's will except his own," Wilson contradicted her. "This is what he's always done: bulldozing over other people in order to prove his point."

Cuddy felt anger bubbling up inside her. "For God's sake, Wilson! Don't you see what you were asking of him? You were demanding that he sit in that apartment watching you die – because, damn you, you _would_ have died if he hadn't brought you here – and then spend the next few years in prison for withholding aid."

"I could have made it."

"No, you couldn't; your liver was failing! He saved your life, and now he's sitting out there not daring to move, because if you do die here in the hospital, he'll never forgive himself for bringing you here." Her breath hitched and she had to turn away to hide the tears in her eyes from him. She looked at the rain streaking down the window, at the grey leaden sky, at the gynaecology ward on the other side of the courtyard.

Wilson spoke after a long silence. "You can't be upset because I'm mad at House; you were expecting that. You're upset because … because he's been here for me when he wasn't there for you."

Oh, wily Wilson! Why had she believed he wasn't up to his game? He was willing to overlook her part in duping him because he couldn't prove it, not when she and Pete had prepared a foolproof story, but that didn't mean that he couldn't punish her in his own way. He could spot an open wound a mile off, and he was rubbing salt into hers.

She was no match for him, never had been.

But she'd be damned if she'd beat a retreat, so she said in measured tones, "Yes, I'm pissed that he wasn't that guy for me." She paused to analyse her feelings. "And I'm even more pissed at myself for believing he could never be that guy, when it's clear now that he can. But most of all, I'm pissed at _you_ for wallowing in self-pity instead of appreciating what he's putting himself through for your sake. If you wanted to die so badly, you should have run your motorcycle into a tree."

She could have bitten her tongue off for saying that, carrying as it did the connotations of Pete's suicide attempt in front of her house and the misery that followed it, but the words were said, so she blundered on, though she wasn't sure what she was trying to say. "That way he wouldn't have been implicated; it would have been an unfortunate accident. But no, you needed proof that he'd risk his freedom and his future for you, the way you did for him, so you had to put him to the test, didn't you?"

"I didn't ask …," Wilson began, but she was on a roll now, making up in resentment what the face mask made her lose in facial expression.

"You did! If you'd died in that apartment, he would have been arrested and tried for withholding medical aid, and I'm reasonably sure that this time he'd have been convicted. He definitely has the medical knowledge to know better, and since he doesn't have a medical licence, he was not allowed to treat you in the first place. Oh, the prosecution would have loved it!"

Indeed, the danger wasn't averted as yet; the prosecution might still have a field day. If Wilson died and her staff refused to cover for her and Pete, there'd be hell to pay. Now that she thought of it, it was her duty to ensure that collateral damage was minimised, no matter what the outcome for Wilson. She took the book that was lying on the nightstand, tore out the fly leaf, and scribbled a few lines on it.

"Here, sign that!" she said, thrusting it at Wilson.

It was only when he squinted at the paper, struggling to decipher what she'd written, that she realised he was in no state to think reasonably, much less be held accountable for the resentful things he'd said. She looked down, biting her lips, wondering whether she needed to apologise. How was it that Pete always brought out a protective streak in both of them, making them take up arms against whatever hurt him, with little regard for the needs of others around them?

Wilson signed laboriously before holding out the paper and pen for Cuddy to take back. "I have no objection to testifying that the whole treatment plan was _my_ idea and that I refused to consider hospitalisation as a treatment option," he said coldly.

"Wilson," Cuddy said, but before she could verbalise an apology that expressed her regret without backing down from her convictions, a babble of voices outside the door caught both their attention.

"I'll take you to your mom, but you do have to disinfect your hands, sweetie," a nurse was saying.

"Mo-om!" It was Rachel, a very unhappy Rachel.

Just as Cuddy rose, the door opened and the nurse pushed Rachel in. Rachel lunged at Cuddy, almost falling out of her wheelchair in the process, tears in her eyes and abject terror in the sliver of her face that was visible above her face mask.

Cuddy knelt painfully, half taking her into her arms.

"What is it, honey?" she said, a dozen possible scenarios flashing through her mind. Where was Pete and what had he done? Had he forgotten Rachel somewhere in the hospital, leaving her to fend for herself?

"Pe-ete," Rachel wailed.

"What did he do?" Cuddy asked, determined to scalp him at the next opportunity. He'd turned teasing Rachel into an art form, but normally her daughter didn't mind, not understanding half of what Pete said and giving as good as she got in response to the half that she did get. But it was possible that in his desolation he had lashed out so viciously as to upset Rachel.

"A man in the cafeteria hit him. There's blood all over him!"

Oh, shit! She looked up at the nurse who had followed Rachel into the room.

"A nose bleed," the nurse said. "He'll be fine. We're seeing to it."

"What happened?" Cuddy asked. She wasn't sure she wanted to know, but Rachel would want to tell her.

"There were people at the next table, and their phone rang. And Pete leaned over and took their phone, saying the call was for him. And then he tugged at the phone, and the woman tugged at the phone, and Pete yelled at her that the call was for him, and then the man who was with the woman hit Pete."

That made no sense whatsoever. "Who were they?"

"I don't know. I've never seen them before." Rachel thought for a moment. "I don't think Pete knew them either. He just thought they had his phone – only it wasn't his, it was theirs! It didn't even _look_ like his phone. But he didn't stop to look. He just grabbed it when it rang."

Had he gone completely crazy, grabbing other people's phones? Cuddy decided she needed to get her facts straight in case security called the police. She recapitulated what she'd understood so far, even though she felt she was missing a large chunk of vital information. "There were people at the next table and their cell phone rang. When Pete tried to take it from them, the owner attacked him, right?"

"Not the owner; her husband."

Whatever. "And Pete didn't hit him first?"

"Pete didn't hit him at all. He was just hanging on to the phone so tight that the man couldn't get it back from him."

Good! Assault was a lot worse than attempted theft. The phone's owner would think twice before calling the police.

"Perhaps it had the same ring tone as House's phone," Wilson said from his bed.

Rachel swivelled towards him. "It didn't. Pete's has 'Brick in the Wall'. They had something from that _Mamma Mia_ musical, that dancing music."

Wilson lifted his head from his pillow. "'Dancing Queen'?" he said, his expression inscrutable.

"Yeah, that's the one," Rachel said. "Hey, Wilson," she added shyly, only now taking notice of him.

Giving her a tired wave, Wilson sank back on his pillow. "Send him in to me," he said to Cuddy.

_I don't have to understand this!_ Cuddy muttered mantra-like to herself as she pushed Rachel out of the room, glad for the support the wheelchair gave her. Pete was outside sitting on a bench, clutching an ice pack to his face. Blood was spattered all over his shirt and there were stains on his hands and those parts of his face that she could see.

"You can go in," she said to him. "It seems that although saving his life makes you a villain, attempted theft and provoking an assault redeems you."


	23. Scans and Scams

The radiology technician glared at Pete and Chase when they entered her little kingdom. "I'm sorry, but family aren't allowed in here. There's a waiting area outside."

"It's okay, Moira," Cuddy said from behind them. "This is Dr Chase, who'll be operating on Dr Wilson's carcinoma." She didn't bother to explain Pete's presence. "You know Dr Pearson, don't you?"

Moira and Pearson both nodded.

"How are you doing, Moira?" Pearson said. "Do you have anything for us yet?"

The technician pulled up a few scans on the second screen before returning her attention to the primary screen. Pete leaned over her shoulder, staring intently at the picture that was slowly assembling on her screen. Chase and Pearson discussed a previous scan, their conversation punctuated by the MRI's rhythmic thumps.

"Did Dr Wilson move?" Chase asked the technician.

"No, I don't think so."

"'No, he didn't,' or, 'I wasn't paying attention so I have no idea'?" Pete asked.

"Leave off, House," Chase said. "It doesn't look like he moved, but the tumour is so small that something must be off. We need a high resolution scan."

"That _is_ a high resolution scan!" the technician countered.

"Can we compare it to the previous scans?" Chase asked Pearson.

"Sure," Pearson said. "Moira, how do I pull up Dr Wilson's old scans?"

Moira, looking imposed upon, wheeled her chair over to a computer on the other side of the room and hammered on the keyboard. "Here, Dr Pearson."

"Ah, thank you. Let me see, those scans were made in July – that would be ten weeks ago. … You're right, that tumour has shrunk considerably. Resectioning it shouldn't pose a problem. That's pretty amazing!" He scratched his beard, glancing at Pete from the side. " _Pretty_ amazing. It's nothing short of a miracle."

"Honour to whom honour is due," Pete intoned. "Ascribe it to Wilson's treatment plan, not to the Lord."

So much modesty, Cuddy thought, was decidedly suspicious. The treatment plan had been his, not Wilson's … .

Ten minutes later they were back outside, Pearson clutching a sheaf of print-outs. "I'll take these to Dr Wilson and discuss further options with him. But I see no reason why he shouldn't consent to a resection."

As soon as Pearson was out of earshot, Cuddy rounded on Pete. "What did you do?" she asked him.

"If I tell you, I'll have to kill you."

"You almost did already!"

Pete raised a disdainful eyebrow. "Now let's not get overly dramatic. You're fine."

'Fine' wasn't the adjective _she'd_ choose to describe her present health status, but she let it slide.

"I saw the list of meds that Allison organised," Chase said suddenly. "You manipulated the cetuximab dosage, didn't you? Gave him more than you'd agreed on with him, huh?"

"Doubled it," Pete said tersely.

Cuddy took a deep breath. "You dosed him with an amount he hadn't agreed to, risking his liver in the process?"

"What was I supposed to do: give him a lower dosage that had the potential to beat the crap out of his liver without the ability to shrink the tumour sufficiently?"

If she could have, she would have stamped her foot in exasperation, but just the idea of the jolt it would send through her abdomen gave her the shivers. "You could – I don't know! – have _talked_ to him about it? You know, that thing where one friend tells another what he thinks and feels, and where you come to an open and honest agreement?"

"Woman, you're delusional. Wilson isn't an idiot. If I'd told him how much cetuximab I was giving him, he'd have known that his liver would fail and that he'd need to go to hospital. He'd never have agreed."

"So you chose to dose him behind his back!"

"Yes!" Pete yelled. "Thymic carcinoma ain't no pussycat. You don't go hunting man-eating tigers with an air gun. You take a bolt action rifle. The recoil may leave you with a bruised shoulder, but at least you're not the tiger's next meal!"

"Time out!" Chase said. "Naughty stairs for both of you if you don't stop yelling for all and sundry to hear that you treated a patient without his consent and with a non-approved treatment protocol." He put a restraining hand on Cuddy's shoulder. "Cuddy, it's done. There's no use in ranting about it now. We'll go in and get that bastard of a tumour out once the ICU says Wilson is stable enough for the procedure. Who's the big honcho here now that you're on sick leave?"

"Arthur Rubinstein," Cuddy said. "I'll take you to him, but getting privileges for the procedure should be a mere formality. Are you sure you still want to do it? This is nothing that my surgeons can't tackle." Or, in other words, Wilson's tumour was now such an easy target that it didn't require House's team of suicide bombers to take care of it. (Goodness, when had she started thinking in military metaphors?)

"No, that's fine, I'll do it," Chase said.

As they walked towards the elevators Chase offered her a supportive arm, for which she was grateful. Now, two weeks after the surgery, she should have been well on the road to normal mobility, but although the pain had subsided somewhat, she was still as fatigued as during the first week. As Pete had commented, Wilson, who should have been loitering at death's door, was recovering faster than she was. He was barely recognisable with his baldness and skeletal physique – Amy had done a double take when she'd seen him a week ago and had shown no inclination to exchange PDAs of any kind – but he was already as mobile as Cuddy was and in considerably less discomfort. She was happy for him, very happy, but she did wish that her recovery would proceed as speedily.

"So," Chase began when they entered the elevator, "when are you returning to work?"

 _Never!_ her brain gasped, but she smiled politely (she probably looked like a snarling hyena) and said, "In six weeks. I'll be easing in for a few more weeks after that, but I should be doing a full load by Christmas."

"I heard that you have plans for creating a diagnostic department here," Chase said.

Now that sounded more 'interested' than 'polite'; did Chase have an agenda? "Yes, I've drawn up a proposal and presented it to the board."

"Were you thinking of House for the job?" Chase asked next.

"House doesn't have a licence," she said briefly. Yes, she'd had Pete in mind when the idea had occurred to her, but he wasn't a realistic option. They worked well together, and it was a pity that his undeniable talents were lying idle because of avoidable friction between him and his employers (not to mention his horrendous stupidity in wiping his memory, putting the kibosh on any chances of getting his licence back), but she couldn't save the world and she certainly couldn't save Pete. She decided to cut to the chase. "Are _you_ interested?"

Her direct enquiry didn't seem to disconcert him; she liked that. "I've thought about returning to diagnostics. Surgery is not as challenging and exhilarating as diagnostics. Unfortunately there is no opening for me at PPTH, so I've been looking around. I'd like a department of my own," Chase said, giving her the benefit of a megawatt smile.

Okay, so Pete had baited him into doing the surgeries on Wilson by dangling a diagnostic department in front of his nose. Nice move, that, but it _would_ be helpful if Pete kept her informed of those of his machinations that affected her.

"When are you expecting to get board approval?" Chase asked next.

Much as his confidence in her ability to push her scheme flattered her, she had little hope of success. Her chances of becoming dean had shrunk along with her liver, so it wasn't likely that her project would be implemented. Whoever got the deanship would have pet projects of their own, and the board would think twice before allocating resources to a project that mightn't have her successor's support. But she wasn't about to tell him that.

"I'm not expecting anything to be decided before Christmas. The board will want me to oversee the implementation of the first phase of the project, so they'll put the decision on hold until I'm back full-time," she said instead. "I'll get in touch with you as soon as the board approves."

If Chase was clever, he'd start enquiries of his own. Maybe he had agreed to do both surgeries so as to make contacts and suss out the lay of the land: House's former fellows were a wily lot, and Chase had always known which side his bread was buttered on.

"Thanks," Chase said. "You won't regret putting your confidence in me."

"I'll wait out here," she said to Chase when they got to the dean's office. "It confuses my staff when I turn up here; they never know whether they have to listen to Arthur or defer to me."

Biting her lip, she watched him enter the dean's office. Chase was not as uncomplicated as he seemed. Under that sunny surfer veneer lay a compassionate, but also deeply troubled man. She pushed the twinge of guilt that she felt at bringing Cameron back to PPTH firmly aside; Chase should never have taken up with a colleague, and if she had to consider all the ramifications of staff dalliances when making staffing decisions, she'd never get anywhere. Nevertheless, she hoped that the hints that both Pete and Wilson had been dropping about Chase's problems didn't have any bearing on his decision to look for a new job.

She returned to the ICU, where quite a crowd had gathered. Pearson and Wilson were poring over the scans while Pete was idly doing naughty things with a teddy bear and a stuffed duck that Wilson had gotten as presents from the nurses and Chase respectively. Rachel and Tanja were carrying out a heated argument in a mixture of English, Russian, hand signs and grimaces that probably centred around whether Rachel had to go home or not.

In a corner where she could easily be overlooked sat Amy, her stomach now visibly rounded, her expression tense. Just the sight of Rachel, Cuddy knew, could have this effect on pregnant women and young parents; she was living evidence that a child's health was precarious and that parenting could be as much of an ordeal as a delight. Cuddy approached her with a smile and a nod.

"Hey," she said. "You've heard the good news?"

Amy looked blank.

"Wilson's tumour has shrunk so much that it's operable," Cuddy explained. "He should be fine and out of hospital within four weeks or so, depending on how his liver does."

"Oh, yes," Amy said. "I ... Yes, they told me."

Cuddy paused, examining her. Amy looked rather peaked and not as happy as was to be expected on hearing that her boyfriend had been called back from death's door.

"Is everything okay?" Cuddy asked. Amy looked even more mystified, if that was possible. "With the baby, I mean," Cuddy added, thinking she'd scream if she had to spell out every word. Even Rachel was quicker on the uptake than this young woman.

"The baby? Oh, yes."

Cuddy, despairing of starting any sort of conversation, looked around for a diversion that would allow her to leave Amy to her own devices. She remembered Amy as a bubbly, immature girl who bore little resemblance to this monosyllabic bundle of nerves, and she didn't quite know what to make of her. She supposed she should stop Pete from twisting the stuffed toys into pornographic convolutions in Rachel's presence, but she didn't want to draw Rachel's attention to what he was doing for fear of igniting her curiosity in the process.

"Could … could I talk to you for a moment, Lisa?" Amy said.

Cuddy brought her attention back to Amy, who had stood up and was now sidling towards the door. "Sure," she said, following her.

She saw out of the corner of her eye that Pete's head had snapped up and that he was following their progress with interest. She grimaced at him and rolled her eyes, hoping that he'd get the hint and leave the stuffed toys be. He did: he perched them on the window sill with the duck's beak buried in the teddy bear's crotch, and then he ambled carelessly after them.

Amy leaned against the wall outside Wilson's room. "Lisa, I wanted to tell you that I … that James … that I'm happy that he's gonna be fine, but … ."

"But?" Cuddy echoed, trying to look encouraging, but actually wanting to shake a modicum of sensible speech out of the woman. What on earth did Wilson see in her? She mentally struck the question; there was very little doubt as to what had attracted Wilson and it wasn't the unfading beauty of Amy's immortal soul. Men, Cuddy thought, could be massive idiots.

"But I won't be around so much in future," Amy concluded.

It had escaped Cuddy's notice that Amy had been around much before now. She could only remember Amy visiting Wilson once, about eight days ago. Something of that must have shown in her expression because Amy continued hurriedly, "I've been feeling tired and worn out lately, and my doctor said I should take it slow."

"Oh dear, is there a problem?" Cuddy said, feeling for her at once. "If you like, I can ask one of my gynaecologists to give you a quick check-up."

But even as she was making a quick mental check as to which of the hospital's gynaecologists was most suited to reassuring an insecure young woman Amy said, "No, no, I'm fine. Really!"

"She's trying to tell you that she has a new boyfriend," Pete said from behind her. She swung around to glare at him, hoping that his interruption hadn't frozen Amy into complete silence. Pretending to flinch from her glare, Pete took a step backwards. "Isn't that right, Annie?"

"I … yes … it's _Amy_ ," Amy said, asserting herself for the first time. "And he's my fiancé," she added defiantly in Pete's direction.

"Oh," Cuddy said, dumbfounded. This wasn't a development she'd reckoned with, mostly because she hadn't given any thought to Amy and her predicament recently. "That's … ." She searched for a phrase that would convey regret (and a hint of disapproval) at Amy's desertion (had she and Wilson been an official 'item'?) while expressing her best wishes for Amy's future. There was no such phrase, she decided. "Well, I wish you all the best," she said rather formally. "Does Wilson know?"

"No." Amy glanced back furtively into Wilson's room, where Pearson was patting Wilson's shoulder jovially. "I was hoping … that _you'd_ tell him."

"Sure," Pete said obligingly before Cuddy could react to such an impertinent demand. "Hey, Wilson!" he yelled back into the room. "Amy's got a new squeeze."

Amy flushed and scuttled backwards so that Wilson wouldn't be able to see her from where he was sitting next to the bed. Wilson merely looked up at Pete, shrugged, and turned back to Pearson; it seemed he wasn't taking Pete seriously.

Cuddy followed Amy. "How do you think this will work, with the baby and Wilson, now that you've got someone else?" She hoped she didn't come across as judgmental, but she felt no inclination to be nice to someone who couldn't find it in herself to deal openly with Wilson after what he'd gone through for the baby's sake.

"Oh, James can come and see Joel anytime," Amy said with a slow return of her usual chirpy confidence.

"Joel? The baby is a boy?"

"Yes. I decided on Joel because James is Jewish, isn't he, and my dad, he loves listening to Billy Joel."

" _If you say goodbye to me tonight, There will still be music left to write_ ," Pete sang soulfully from behind her.

"Yes, exactly," Amy said, oblivious to the false pathos in Pete's voice. "Except that I prefer 'Uptown Girl', but anyway."

"Right, _anyway_ ," Pete said. "I guess we should be glad Daddy doesn't love Art Garfunkel."

Amy looked blank again, which caused Pete to roll his eyes in despair. Cuddy smiled grimly; he'd never had much patience with out-and-out stupidity. Amy cast a last surreptitious glance into Wilson's room saying, "I guess I'll be going then." And with that she gave a little wave and scurried off.

"Well," Cuddy said, leaning against the wall in turn, "that was …"

"Sensible," Pete completed for her.

"She dumps Wilson the moment his health is compromised, and you call that 'sensible'? I call it callous!"

"She saw that the child's progenitor was dying, so she looked around for a new provider in order to maximise her child's chances of survival. That's what good mothers are supposed to do: give their children that extra edge that they need in order to survive."

Cuddy rolled her eyes. "Good for you."

"Huh?"

She patted his arm. "You've managed to give her self-serving behaviour an unselfish spin. That's a first, coming from a hardened cynic like you. It sucks for Wilson, though. He's put himself through all of this for the baby's sake, and now the child is being snatched away from under his nose."

They both looked at Wilson, who was showing Rachel something on his scans. They heard him say, "And that's the Kohinoor, the biggest diamond in the world. The intrepid Bobby Chase, jewel thief _par excellence_ , and his troupe of master burglars will break into the bank safe at Wilson Avenue and snatch it out, leaving Inspector Cuddy and her police force perplexed and publicly disgraced." Rachel went into fits of giggles.

"Nothing has changed for Wilson," Pete said.

"Everything has changed. Maybe he'll get visitation rights, but what if Amy decides to move away or just be difficult about it? She seems volatile."

His sharp blue eyes pierced her. "You think his life is only worth living if he spends it around a little poop machine?"

"That's not what _I_ think, but I fear he does."

Pete gazed across the room at Rachel, and then down at her, almost tenderly. "Then he's an idiot," he said.

She stared at him open-mouthed. "Is that … are you complimenting us?"

"It's a fact. Let's go bring him the good news!" He stumped back into Wilson's room. "The good news," he said to Wilson, "is that you won't have to change diapers at night. The bad news … ." He tapped his forehead as though trying to remember something. "There is no bad news, is there, Lisa?"

"Amy is engaged," she said gently to Wilson.

"Oh," Wilson said. "That's … great for her. Really great!" He appeared less surprised than Cuddy had anticipated.

"You're okay with that?" she asked slowly. She didn't want to suggest to him that this was a bad development – chances were that it was for the best – but she didn't want him to bury his hurt deep inside from where it would burst out at some inopportune moment.

Wilson plucked at his blanket. "I was a bad choice for her even before I got sick. Now I'm an even worse choice. It's good that she's doing what's best for her and the kid. And it's even better that she is doing it now, before I get used to being around them all of the time. Like this, I know right from the start that I'll only be a visiting dad, not a permanent fixture in my son's daily life. No false expectations, no disappointments."

"It's great that you're taking this change in your stride," Cuddy said slowly.

Wilson looked up. "Nothing has changed. I'm going to be a father."


	24. Lifestyle Changes

**May 2017**

"There he is," Cuddy said when she spotted Pete, half a head taller than the other people leaving the baggage claim area.

"Where?" Rachel in her wheelchair wouldn't have been able to spot him had he been walking on stilts. "Where, Mom?"

"You'll see him in a moment," Cuddy said, standing on tiptoe and waving. He'd be looking for Wilson again, so she needed to catch his attention.

Finally he saw them and came over, giving her a puzzled frown and Rachel a nod. "What did Wilson do this time?"

Barely managing to refrain from hugging him, Cuddy squeezed his arm for a short moment instead. "Nothing," she said.

"Amy called and said he had to come to New York _at once_ , so he asked us to pick you up," Rachel said importantly.

"Amy, huh?" Pete said, falling into step beside Cuddy. "Needed his help with a major medical crisis, like diaper rash?"

"I'm sure it was important," Cuddy said primly, not wanting to cast a slur on Amy's abilities, parenting or otherwise, in front of Rachel. Amy was supposedly engaged, but privately Cuddy wondered whether she wasn't angling to trade up, now that Wilson, far from standing with one foot in the grave, was well on the path to complete recovery. His cancer was in remission and his body had accepted Cuddy's liver with minimal unpleasant side effects. He'd been doing an increasing number of consults and he was due to ease back into a normal working life in the coming months. From a financial perspective he was definitely a more attractive candidate than Amy's fitness trainer.

She took a look at Pete's baggage, a suitcase that was large by his standards and his Ossur blade in its special case. "Are you planning on staying longer? Wilson said you were only staying for a few days."

"Conference on diagnostics in Seattle afterwards," he said briefly.

Seattle - that would be Foreman. She'd heard that Foreman was hosting a conference on diagnostic methods a mere four weeks before PPTH's annual Diagnostic Symposium, which was the medical equivalent of planting a big fat poop on Cameron's doorstep. Cameron would be fuming and getting all passive-aggressive about it; Cuddy was happy she didn't have to deal with her. She wished those two would grow up: Cameron needed to learn that work environments weren't junior high sleepovers; they were battlefields. Foreman for his part would do a lot better if he focused on cooperating with others instead of proving his superiority at every opportunity.

"You're speaking?" she asked with a strong hint of disbelief.

"Does that surprise you?"

She supposed it shouldn't. He'd never been a keen speaker, but he'd only gone into hiding after the infarction, a tendency that she had observed at the time with regret and misgivings. Nevertheless, when he so chose, he could speak brilliantly with little effort and even less preparation: he had all the facts and numbers at his fingertips and his amazing brain structured everything in a coherent manner.

What bothered her was that she'd had no idea that he was a speaker at the conference. A year ago she'd have kept a close eye on anything that _any_ diagnostic department in the country was up to. She'd have known how big the conference was, who the keynote speakers were, who was attending, etc. This year, she'd barely registered the conference and she'd clean forgotten to check the details.

"Is Chase attending?" she asked.

Pete gave her an appraising look, the one where he cocked his head, pursed his lips and narrowed one eye. "You're thinking of giving him a job, and you don't know whether he's attending a conference that will be vital for making and maintaining contacts for that job? Woman, you're losing your touch."

She was well aware of it and she'd rather not have him remind her of it. "It turns out that donating seventy per cent of your liver affects not only your hepatic function, but your overall quality of life, including your powers of concentration and your memory," she said tartly.

"Blaming me?" he asked.

"No, just pointing out that there are topics that you might want to avoid."

He had the sense to keep his mouth shut during the remainder of the drive home, but she could feel him scrutinising her as she drove. Rachel, in the back seat, was uncharacteristically quiet. She'd been wildly excited about Pete's visit, but now that he was here she was overcome by shyness. Pete had that effect on many people; his sheer physical presence was overpowering and he did little to put people at their ease.

At the door to the downstairs apartment Cuddy paused. "Wilson left a key for you ...,"

"I should hope so," Pete muttered.

"... but I don't know when he'll be back. Why don't you come upstairs and have dinner with us?"

"Oh, yes!" Rachel piped up.

Pete looked at Rachel skeptically - for a long moment Cuddy feared he'd shoot her down - but then he nodded. "But no vegetarian grub," he stipulated.

"I got steak," Cuddy said.

Again a keen stare - he must have figured by now that red meat seldom featured on her meal plans - and then a short nod of approval.

She unlocked the door to Wilson's apartment for him and gave him the key. "We'll eat in about forty-five minutes. If Wilson turns up, just bring him with you."

He came upstairs half an hour later, and instead of slouching into the living room and turning on the television, he joined her in the kitchen. Of course, he immediately had to go through the papers that she'd placed on the far end of the kitchen counter for quick perusal while she cooked.

"You're moving out?" he asked, holding up a real estate brochure.

"I'm thinking about it. Rachel wants a dog, a big one, and there's no way we can keep a dog in this apartment. We'll need a yard. Besides, Wilson will be returning to New York soon. He wants to find a job in New York so as to be close to Amy and Joel. I figure the meeting today has something to do with it. The couple who own the apartment downstairs are due to return from Europe in three months anyway. So, this is as good a time as any to start something new."

"Thought you didn't like houses ever since I wrecked your last one."

She busied herself draining the vegetables, hoping he wouldn't see her uncertainty. The very thought of leaving the safe haven she'd built for herself on the top floor of this apartment block caused her heart rate to accelerate, but a house with a yard had undeniable advantages, not the least being that she wouldn't be dependent on the elevator. After the last storm, Rachel had been stuck upstairs for eighteen hours until power was restored.

"I think I'm ready to move on," she said amid clouds of steam.

"You're allowing your daughter's whining to dictate your life?"

She turned to face him. "She's about to lose Wilson, and all her friends are gaining independence while she's tied to her wheelchair. She's getting left behind. A dog is the least I can do." At the rate he was going she'd be impaling him with a knife before Wilson even got back. "Rachel, dinner is ready!"

Dinner was spent with Pete and Rachel trying to outdo each other at being disgusting: eating with their hands, chewing noisily and with mouths open, allowing meat juices to drip from their mouths. Cuddy put a stop to it when Rachel started spitting food across the table.

"If there's any more of this, _you_ will do the dishes," she pointed to Pete with her fork, "and _you_ will be clearing the table and cleaning up afterwards." That was something Rachel could manage despite her wheelchair, although Cuddy usually didn't have the patience to let Rachel help in the kitchen. It took three times as long as doing it herself, and while Rachel wheeled around the kitchen, no one else could get anything done in there. Pete and Rachel both pretended to be cowed by her threat, but Cuddy wasn't fooled. They continued to amuse themselves by sneaking the vegetables they didn't like onto each other's plates whenever they thought Cuddy wasn't looking.

"When is the conference in Seattle?" Cuddy finally asked.

"The opening event is on Thursday," Pete said.

"Thank God!" Cuddy breathed.

Pete stuck out his lower lip. "I'm hurt!" he proclaimed. "Especially since it's Wilson who'll have to deal with me till then. You only have to tolerate me for one evening. Besides, you volunteered."

That reminded her: "You're not getting Wilson tomorrow evening. He's accompanying me to our gala fundraiser."

Pete straightened and put down his fork. "A date?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Just as a friend," Cuddy hurried to inform him with a quick glance at Rachel.

"There can be only two reasons why you'd drag Wilson there," Pete said with his best diagnostic voice.

Cuddy interrupted him before he said something she really didn't need Rachel to hear. "Yes, there are two reasons. One, I'm sick of the pitying glances I get from women who aren't single, and two, I'm tired of getting hit on by elderly creeps who think I must be desperate because I'm forty-plus and single."

"So you think the best way to show that you're a happy and independent spinster is by going there with a date," Pete said.

"I've spent thirty years trying to prove that I'm independent and strong by going to these events without a date. Now I've decided that I don't need to prove _anything_ to _anyone_. I just want a quiet evening with no one staring at me, hitting on me, or feeling sorry for me." She slapped down her silverware, stood up and plonked her plate in the sink. "So, Wilson's blocked for tomorrow from six - no, make that four o'clock in the afternoon. Don't go out with him, don't try to abscond with him, don't ... do anything at all!"

"Ooooh," Pete stage-whispered to Rachel. "Someone's on a roll!"

Rachel put on her cool _I-know-it-all_ act. "She's been that way ever since that horrible man Ryan took away her job," she whispered back.

Rachel must have understood more of Arlene Cuddy's latest rant on her daughter's work life than was good for her. "One: I am _not_ 'that way', whatever that may mean. Two, Ryan is not a horrible person. I don't know where you got the idea that he's horrible; you don't even know him! Three, he didn't take away 'my' job. He applied like everyone else did and he was chosen to be Dean, because he was the best applicant. I was just a stand-in for a few months, so now I'm back to doing my real job. It's like you getting a substitute teacher when your teacher is sick. As soon as your teacher is back on her feet, she comes back to teach you and the substitute goes back to whatever she was doing before. I'm back to doing 'Family and Community Healthcare', which is what I did before I stood in for Arthur Rubinstein."

"And that sucks," Pete said.

She looked into his eyes and saw understanding, compassion, and possibly some guilt. "It's the way it is," she said, hoping to end the discussion.

A year ago she'd have laughed outright if someone had suggested that she'd spend the rest of her working life figuring out how to get drug-addicted teens to care for their unwanted babies, but now it appeared that she wouldn't have much of a choice. Prior to the liver donation she'd been at the top of the shortlist for the post of dean, but now, half a year later, she was stuck in a rut, with not a chance of landing a major administrative post. She'd been on sick leave for ten whole weeks, during which time not only her own department but the entire hospital, weakened already by losing its previous dean at short notice, had sunk into chaos. She wasn't young and dynamic anymore, she had taken two long personal breaks during the past five years, and she'd been rejected as dean by her own hospital; she had no illusions as to what kind of job she could land if she opted to leave Philadelphia Central.

"But," she added, "I'm not facing an entire evening among people who witnessed my fall without some kind of moral support. So, Wilson is taboo tomorrow evening."

Pete looked down at his plate, speared a bean that Rachel had just deposited there, and demonstratively ate it. "See, Mom?" he said. "I can be a good boy."

Cuddy raised her eyes to the ceiling, but couldn't help smiling. "Both of you get out of here before I make you clean the pans and the oven. Rachel, you still need to do your homework, I believe."

They obeyed, Rachel moaning about her homework, Pete with alacrity. His guilt and compassion stopped short of volunteering to help in the kitchen, but that wasn't exactly news. After she'd finished tidying the kitchen she made coffee for Pete and herbal tea for herself and took the mugs to the living room, along with a stack of papers from her realtor. Pete was settled on the couch watching a baseball game. She sat down in an armchair and started sorting the brochures into three piles: 'suitable', 'with potential', and 'totally unsuitable'.

Pete sat up and took out his reading glasses. Recognising at one glance how her sorting system functioned, he grabbed the 'suitable' pile and began shooting down one house after another. "Seriously, a house with steps up front for a cripple?"

"Ever heard of a ramp?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the leaflet she was studying. Five bedrooms spread over two floors was _way_ more than they needed, but the house was in an excellent location, had a big downstairs bathroom that she could convert to Rachel's needs, and the yard was a dream. Furthermore it had recently been modernised, so she wouldn't need to invest much money. The downside: the buying price exceeded her budget by thirty per cent. She'd have to bargain with the owner ... .

"The kitchen is too small," Pete said, chucking another of her 'suitables' onto the 'unsuitable' pile. She leaned forward and sorted it back again without a word. He'd always disliked change, so he'd fight her moving to another place tooth and nail simply because he associated her with an apartment in Germantown. Well, he'd just have to learn to associate her with the ultimate suburban cliché.

She heard a key being inserted in the front door lock - Wilson had a spare - and the door being opened. There was a long pause before she heard Wilson puttering around in the entryway, taking off his shoes and coat. Normally, he'd give her a shout from the hall so she knew it was him, but today he didn't do so. And he was slow, very slow. She stopped reading and concentrated on listening to his movements. There wasn't much to listen to: Wilson seemed to have stopped moving altogether.

"Wilson?" she said. Pete looked up from his reading.

"Yeah," came the muted reply. Pete's eyebrows rose.

"Are you okay?" Cuddy called. "Is everything fine with Joel and Amy?"

Wilson appeared in the doorway. He looked shell-shocked. "She asked me whether I wanted to take Joel."

Cuddy smiled bracingly. "That's nice. Overnight or for the whole weekend?"

He'd be fine, she told herself. Any reasonably intelligent and resourceful guy could deal with a baby, no matter what her mother insinuated about members of the male sex and their parenting abilities.

"Forever," Wilson mouthed hollowly. He tugged at the spot where his tie usually sat, nearly pulling off a shirt button in the process, and messed up his hair with the other hand.

"She's dumping the vermin on you?" Pete asked, his eyes narrowing skeptically.

"Yes, goddam it!" Wilson exploded.

Pete started chuckling.

"It's not funny!" Cuddy told him as she strode over to Wilson. Putting a soothing hand on his arm she said, "Don't worry, she's just trying to put pressure on you."

"She sure succeeded," Wilson said.

"Figure out what she wants - money, matrimony, emotional support - and talk her out of it," Cuddy advised.

Pete interlaced his fingers behind his head and leaned back, twinkling at them over the top of his reading glasses. "Female solidarity - I love it!"

Cuddy glared at him; if they didn't watch out, Amy would be Mrs Wilson IV. _This_ time there was more at stake than divorce costs and alimony: Wilson looked to get his heart broken if Amy departed in a few years with the child in tow.

Wilson sank down helplessly on the couch next to Pete. "I proposed; she shot me down. I'm already paying child support, and I told her I was prepared to up it if the problem was a financial one; she said that money wasn't an issue. I offered to move back to New York and share childcare with her - I wanted to do that anyway. But she said she'd thought it through: she wanted to place Joel for adoption. She insisted she'd been manipulated into this by emotional blackmail and now she wanted out. Said she was too young to raise a child that should never have been conceived."

He looked at them, consternation in his eyes. "I swear, I never pressured her into keeping the kid. I knew that my survival was a long shot; I never demanded that she keep Joel on the off chance of my living long enough to see him born."

"Post-partum depression," Cuddy diagnosed.

"You proposed and she refused? Interesting. That means the boyfriend's still around," Pete surmised. "Chances are that her boyfriend doesn't like nights of hot sex disrupted by a bawling poop machine."

"She'll miss him so much that she'll be standing on your doorstep in two days - three at the most - demanding him back," Cuddy predicted.

"I don't think so," Wilson said wearily. "Apparently she made the decision during the last month of her pregnancy. Her gynaecologist told her to sit it out and see whether she'd feel differently after the child was born, but Joel is two months old now and she hasn't changed her mind. She gave me a choice: I could either sign the papers terminating my rights as birth father, allowing her to place him for adoption, or I could take him myself. So, I took him."

Pete looked around demonstratively. " _Took_ him," he repeated. "And where did you _leave_ him? At the next rest stop?"

"No. I left him out in the entryway." Wilson gestured towards the doorway through which he'd just come.

Rolling her eyes, Cuddy strode out into the entryway. There, next to the shoe storage rack, stood an infant car seat with a sleeping baby strapped into it. As Cuddy looked down at him, he brought up a tiny hand and pulled the back of it over his face, making a little mewling sound in his sleep. It was all Cuddy could do to stop herself from tugging him out of the seat and cuddling him close to her heart. Instead, she picked up the seat and carried it into the living room.

"Wilson, he's adorable!" she said.

Wilson grimaced. "Maybe he is, but he yelled all the way from New York to Philly. I nearly ran the car off the freeway."

Pete sat up, took off his reading glasses, and stared at the infant. As though sensing his critical stare, Joel opened his eyes and yawned. Pete tipped his head, his tongue peeping out of the corner of his mouth. Joel moved restlessly, whimpering.

"He must be hungry," Wilson said. "Amy said he'd need a bottle around this time."

"Have you got bottles and formula?" Cuddy asked

"I've got everything," Wilson said heavily, getting up. "I've got the whole car full of baby paraphernalia. Amy had everything sorted and packed already; all we had to do was load it into my car."

Cuddy unfastened the seat belt and picked Joel up, murmuring soothing words as she carried him out of the living room. "Hey, Rachel," she called. "Come and look at Joel."

"What?" Rachel appeared at the door of her room. "Oh! Hold him lower down, Mom; I can't see."

Cuddy crouched down next to Rachel's wheelchair.

"He's _small_ ," Rachel pronounced.

"He's only two months old," Cuddy said. "Look at his little hands! Aren't they perfect? Look, they even have fingernails."

Rachel carefully took one little hand in hers and examined it. "Does he have fingerprints yet?" she asked.

"Yep." Pete had appeared in the doorway and was looking at them with the same puzzled expression he'd worn in the living room. "Fingerprints develop while the foetus is still in its mother's womb. The fingerprints expand as the hand grows, but they don't change."

"Oh, look, he has blue eyes!" Rachel said.

Pete moved to her side and gazed down at the boy. "Most Caucasian infants start off with blue eyes," he said. "Blue means no pigmentation – that's the colouring - as yet. That will change in the coming year when the cells in his eyes, the melanocytes, start producing pigmentation. That means you can only use an iris scan to identify him when he's about a year old."

Despite the factual nature of the information he was imparting, Cuddy noticed that his expression was worried, or maybe nervous. Was he bothered because Wilson was now saddled with someone who was needier than he was? It didn't make sense: Pete had been aware of the danger posed by Amy and her child. He and she had discussed the repercussions of Wilson getting a needy female pregnant, and Pete had been resigned and fatalistic about it. He'd even cracked jokes about it, saying that since he couldn't remember being best man at Wilson's second wedding, this was a good opportunity to recreate the memory. Had he hoped that Amy would show Wilson the cold shoulder once the child was born? Well, now she had, but not in the way Cuddy had privately hoped she would.

Joel squalled, tearing her from her thoughts. "Where's Wilson and the formula?" she asked.

"In the kitchen," Pete said.

Cuddy rose from her half-crouch and held the child out to Pete. "Here, hang on to him while I help Wilson," she said.

Pete backed away. "No way, Jose," he said. When she frowned at him, he added, "Lisa, it doesn't take two people to make one bottle of formula. Wilson can handle it."

"Can I hold him?" Rachel asked.

Cuddy looked at her doubtfully.

"Mom, nothing can go wrong. I'll just sit with him on my lap," Rachel said.

"Good point," Pete said. " _She_ can't trip and fall, dropping the piglet."

"Okay," Cuddy said. She adjusted Rachel's arms, placed Joel in them, and tucked Rachel's hands tightly into place. "Hold on, and don't get distracted!" Once she was certain that Rachel was holding Joel securely, she pushed the wheelchair into the kitchen.

Since Amy had had the foresight to supply a thermos flask of boiled water along with the formula, preparing a bottle for Joel proved no challenge. Nor did feeding him: when Cuddy proffered the bottle he latched straight onto the nipple and drank up most of it with little fuss and bother.

The problem started afterwards.

"You have to burp him," Rachel offered wisely.

"I'm trying!" Wilson said, jiggling a red-faced, bawling Joel against his shoulder.

"Shall _I_ give it a try?" Cuddy asked, repressing memories of Rachel crying almost non-stop for the first eight weeks of her life.

"Sure," Wilson said, handing the baby over to her.

Joel burped resoundingly the moment Cuddy patted his back - she could barely repress a smirk of victory - but promptly started crying again.

"Camomile tea," Cuddy muttered, heading for the kettle while balancing Joel against her shoulder. It had done zilch for Rachel when she'd been that age, but you never knew. "Did Amy say anything about …?"

"No!"

"Jesus!" Pete appeared in the kitchen, a scowl on his face. "Three people in here, and you can't keep the vermin quiet?"

"Be our guest," Cuddy snapped, holding out Joel.

To her surprise Pete took him. He held him at arm's length, gazing at the red scrunched-up face, and then he draped the baby face down over his left forearm, arms and legs dangling on either side rather like a sloth on a branch. Then he moved around the kitchen, his right hand travelling down the boy's spine, feeling for deformations, and then up to the head, palpitating the skull.

"Anything the paediatrician missed?" Cuddy asked bitingly.

"Nope," Pete said.

Just then Joel broke wind resoundingly. He gave another little burp and calmed down. Wilson and Cuddy stared at Pete, who smiled with infuriating superiority. "When air needs to come out," he explained to Rachel, "the opening has to be at the top, because air moves upwards, like bubbles in your soda. If you hold him upright, it's difficult for him to fart."

"But you weren't holding him bottom up," Rachel said.

"No, because the air wanted to get out at both ends. And most likely his meal would have come out if I'd dangled him upside down. Milk is heavier than air and likes to go down. But like this," he nodded at the contented infant, "he gets his stomach massaged by my arm, while the air has an escape route. Okey-dokey, back to Daddy you go!" He held out his arm to Wilson, who took Joel with an air of trepidation.

"It ain't rocket science, Wilson," Pete said condescendingly.

"You," Wilson said, "were lucky, that's all."

"And you got talked into buying a lemon," Pete threw over his shoulder as he left the kitchen. A moment later the front door slammed.


	25. Trapped

When she came out of the bathroom Pete was sitting at her dresser. He glanced at her - she noted uncomfortably that her towel barely covered her and that she was dripping water all over the floor - before returning his attention to her perfumes.

"What do you think you're doing?" she snapped.

"Couldn't find your sex toys, so …" He shrugged and pulled the stopper out of a bottle. After sniffing at it he put it to one side and said with the air of a connoisseur, "No, I _don't_ think so. Flowery and light: just right for a summer day, but not the thing for a formal occasion where you want to impress."

"What. Are. You. Doing. In. My. Bedroom?"

"Avoiding an overdose of Cuddy. Your sister arrived."

Cuddy's heart skipped a beat. "You ran into Julia?"

"Not quite, although I'd _love_ to meet your charming sister," he said with fake sincerity, batting his eyelashes. "Rachel greeted her volubly when she opened the door, so I was forewarned and opted for a strategic retreat into your bedroom."

"Why aren't you downstairs?"

"Kid was bawling, Wilson was looking like he needed help, so I left."

All things considered, Pete invading her privacy and going through her belongings was preferable to a showdown between him and Julia. She grabbed her dress off the bed where she'd laid it out before taking her shower and disappeared into the bathroom once again. After slipping into it and wrapping a towel around her wet hair, she felt better armed to face Pete.

When she re-entered the bedroom, he waved a flask of perfume at her. "This one," he said. "It's classy _and_ sexy."

When she saw which bottle he was holding, she inhaled sharply. "No, I don't think so," she said. "I ... don't need 'sexy' tonight. I have to exude an aura of professional competence. The Dior should do the job."

He sniffed at the Dior. "Bo-o-o-ring," he judged.

"Not surprising; my mother gave it to me. But it's just right for a big formal do." She stretched out her hand for the perfume, but he pulled it away at the last moment, giving her a calculating glance.

"Why would you wear a standard, off-the-shelf perfume that reminds you of your mother, whom you hate, …"

"I don't hate my mother!"

"… when you have one smelling of a hundred dollars per ounce that suits you to a 't' ?" He picked up his original choice and stared at it, his chin jutting out in thought. Then right on cue, his gaze grew distant, marking one of his epiphanies. "Because the memories associated with this one are even worse." He tipped his head slightly, holding up the offending object and regarding it sideways. " _I_ must have given you this one when we were dating."

She didn't attempt to deny it.

"How come you didn't trash it along with all the other mementos of me?" he asked.

There hadn't been much to trash; he had left astoundingly few tangible traces of his nine-month sojourn in her private life. His refusal to brand her house with the marks of his presence should have warned her of the impermanence of their relationship.

"I didn't wear it much after we broke up, but I kept it in the hope that someday I'd find one like it." She smiled at him pensively. "You're right: it does suit me."

His choices, whether in clothes, jewellery or perfumes, had always been unerring. When they were dating (an æon ago, in another life) he'd lie on the bed watching her get ready and proffering advice.

' _Cuddy, it's a fundraiser!' he'd gripe. 'You wanna see money? Then you need to show some leg and a_ lot _of cleavage. You can wear that straight-jacket to Christine's wedding, but not tonight.'_

' _Are you insinuating that the donors pay to see me half naked?'_

' _I'm suggesting that if you want them to dip into their wallets, you need to create positive associations in their subconscious. Your donors are mostly elderly guys; where are guys happy to spend money without getting anything material in return?" Short rhetoric pause. "In nightclubs. Wear the green dress and the silver pendant that hangs exactly between your boobs.'_

Hoping to end the discussion, she took the Dior and dabbed it on her wrists and behind her ears.

"How do I sneak you past Julia?" she said, turning her back to him so that he could do up the zipper of her dress for her.

"You don't. You get Julia out of here, then I don't have to _sneak_ anywhere." He got up and took hold of the zipper. "Breathe out and pull in your stomach! When was the last time you wore this dress?"

"About a year ago." How the hell was she supposed to keep her figure when she couldn't go for runs any more? It had taken months before she'd been able to do her full yoga routine again; going for five-mile runs was still a distant dream.

He inched the zipper up in minuscule steps. "You'll have to forego dinner. Not that I mind if the seams split, but I won't be there to enjoy the view."

Cuddy smirked at him in the mirror. "Yes, you will: _you're_ coming with me, now that Wilson can't go. I'll send Julia down to Wilson so she can croon over Joel. That should keep her busy until you're out the door."

"You want me to go to that shindig even though I'm bound to run into your sister over there, if not here? Lisa, that's the crappiest idea you've had in a long time, and heaven knows there has been heavy competition lately."

"Julia is here to babysit Rachel, not to join in the applause when the guy who grabbed the deanship from under my nose explains how he's going to steer the hospital out of murky waters into the ocean of success."

She turned round to face him now that her zipper was done up, only to find him examining her intently. Oh shit, she'd just let him help her dress like he used to when they were still dating! She hadn't been thinking; she'd been on auto-pilot, trying to figure out how to prevent O.K. Corral from happening in her apartment. In order to hide her embarrassment she turned back to her dresser to choose a necklace.

"Chase will be there," she said, hoping this piece of information would make Pete amenable to attending the function.

"Why would Chase come to Philly Central's annual gala dinner now that you're back to swabbing crotches? Your new dean surely won't do him the favour of opening up a diagnostic department."

"Not our new dean; _I'm_ going to open up a diagnostic unit," Cuddy said, not even trying to hide her satisfaction. "General Medicine has been shifted to my department to console me for losing out in the deanship stakes. The department is called Primary Care now, and I've been given the funding to employ a diagnostician."

" _One_ diagnostician?" Pete mocked. "That's going to make so much of a difference!"

"That depends on the diagnostician," Cuddy said, twirling in front of the mirror in an attempt to get a glimpse of her ass in that dress. The dress was rather tighter than it should be, which didn't flatter her figure, but it would have to do for this evening. "If you want to get out of this bedroom before midnight, you're coming with me. Otherwise I'll make sure that Julia doesn't leave the apartment before I come back."

She'd thought she'd reached the pinnacle of humiliation when she'd lost the deanship to Ryan Andrews, but she'd aspire to new heights of mortification if she had to go without a date tonight after booking two seats at her table. All things considered, Pete was a better choice as a date than Wilson, because officially Wilson was her ex-fiancé. Pete's presence would take less explaining than Wilson's.

"I haven't got anything to wear," Pete groused.

"Yes, you do; you're attending that conference in Seattle, so you must have brought something." He'd have a suit and tie; it would have to do.

"If Julia's staying here with Rachel, then she can look after the rugrat too and Wilson can go with you," Pete suggested hopefully.

"Wilson isn't going to leave Joel with a stranger on his second night in his new home," Cuddy pointed out.

"Why not? It's not as though the little critter will notice the difference. Wilson is as much a stranger as Julia is. The kid has met him five times, making roughly ten hours in all, in his entire life. Besides," he said, tipping his head to the side to consider her choice of jewellery, "Julia is a female."

"Spare me whatever sexist drivel you're about to spout."

He raised his eyebrows as though insulted. "I'm merely saying that it takes several months for an infant's vision to develop fully, whereas hearing is fully developed after a month. Julia's voice is closer to Amy's than Wilson's, so the kid is more likely to take to her than to his dad. That isn't even taking into account that infants hear higher pitched voices better than lower ones."

She rolled her eyes. "You can try that argument on Wilson, but you _should_ take into account that he has a third ear that hears neediness." After checking her appearance in the mirror she picked up the bedside phone. "I'd better do something about Julia before she comes in search of me."

She dialled Wilson's number. "Wilson, Julia's here and Pete is trapped in my bedroom. Could you come up and distract her, so I can smuggle Pete out of here?"

"And leave Joel alone?" he said.

"Bring him with you. Better still, take Julia down to your place. Oh, and would you bring Pete's conference get-up with you? He's accompanying me to the gala dinner."

Wilson choked. "What are you bribing him with? No, don't tell me, I'd rather not know."

She went out into the living room where Rachel was regaling her aunt with tales of the abandoned infant; both were only too happy to take up her suggestion that they should spend the evening helping Wilson to adapt to family life. When Wilson came upstairs, she grabbed the tote bag that he'd brought and quickly took it into her bedroom. "Get changed!" she mouthed before she shut the door on Pete again. Then she accompanied Julia and Rachel to the door of the apartment, shutting the door behind them and leaning against it with a sigh of relief.

"Where _do_ you keep your sex toys?" Pete asked when she returned to the bedroom. He'd changed into a navy blue suit and a light blue shirt, and was now lying on her side of the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, surveying the bedroom with a contemplative frown. His gaze followed her involuntary one, and he smiled. "Top wardrobe shelf? Not exactly a prime location; you have to get up and climb on a chair whenever you're feeling frisky. Which makes sense if you're trying to punish yourself or if you never feel frisky or - if you're trying to keep a wheelchair-bound kid from playing with your toys."

Deciding to ignore him, she turned her back on him and sat down at the dresser to do her make-up. As she applied eye-liner, her eyes stared back at her, an ordinary grey with a few flecks of brown. What wouldn't she give to have Pete's eyes! Or Joel's.

Speaking of Joel ...

"You know," she said to Pete's reflection in the mirror, "it doesn't make any sense. Why would Amy think Wilson was manipulative or - what was it? - 'using emotional blackmail'? If she were accusing him of cashing in on her neediness in order to get her to sleep with him, I'd get it, but I'm pretty sure he didn't coerce or blackmail her into keeping Joel when she was pregnant. He wasn't all that enthusiastic at her refusal to terminate, not when he wasn't sure whether he'd survive his cancer or not." She picked up the mascara. "Now if it had been _you_ …"

The pieces fell into place. She swung round from the dresser to face him directly. "It _was_ you, wasn't it? You went to her telling her that she shouldn't terminate."

His silence was confirmation enough.

"How'd you do it?"

He shrugged. "Told her the truth: that a kid would give Wilson a reason to fight the cancer and that she'd be saving his life by keeping it. Nothing manipulative about that, is there?"

She didn't quite buy that, not when he was looking so determinedly innocent, but she decided to let it drop. "You're lucky she got pregnant from that one time and that she didn't terminate before you had a chance to 'persuade' her to keep Joel," she said, sketching quotation marks in the air.

"It was karma," he said, turning the palms of his hands outwards. "Besides, no matter what Wilson says, I doubt they slept together only once."

Karma, indeed! She returned her attention to her make-up, and for once Pete didn't distract her by making unsolicited comments or prying in her drawers, which gave her the opportunity to follow her own thoughts: Amy's behaviour had been vacillating even before she'd opted to abandon her child.

"You must have given the thumbscrews a good turn to change her mind like that. Before she knew about Wilson's cancer she even lied to Wilson about the pregnancy: she phoned and told him she wasn't pregnant. She must have wanted to terminate the pregnancy without having to argue the matter with him," Cuddy surmised, structuring her thoughts by voicing them. "To think that if Wilson had told you what she'd said about not being pregnant, it would never have occurred to you to pursue matters with her, and Wilson would be dead now!" She shook her head at so much providence.

When there was no reaction from the bed behind her, she swung around to check whether he'd fallen asleep. He was contemplating the toes of his shoes. (Was he really, seriously, wearing leather shoes? Miracles never ceased to happen.) His expression was pensive, expressing no appreciation whatsoever for the windfalls that had accompanied his dealings with Amy.

There was only one explanation for that: there had been no windfalls.

She got up slowly. "You knew about that?" It wasn't really a question. "So how did you know she was lying?"

"I got lucky," he said.

 _Lucky?_ "You don't believe in luck."

His eyes flickered over her face before they slid to a spot on the ceiling. He was hiding something, something big! When they'd worked together, whenever he'd bested the odds by circumventing rules and disregarding orders, he'd taunted her with it afterwards. His evasive silence now was more than uncharacteristic; it was unnerving.

For once, _she_ had an epiphany. "She wasn't lying; she _really_ wasn't pregnant," she said flatly. "Pete, what the fuck did you do?"

He scratched his eyebrow with a thumb nail. "Told her she'd be doing everyone a favour if she had Wilson's kid, handed her a cup of sperm and a turkey baster, and …"

"Pete, you didn't!"

His eyes finally met hers again. "Not the turkey baster - that would have been primitive, not state-of-the-art medical technology, so I took a syringe - but the rest was pretty much what happened."

"You - got her to get pregnant just so Wilson would opt for chemo? No wonder she feels manipulated!"

"She could have refused," Pete pointed out. "She _wanted_ that kid. She _wanted_ to get manipulated."

God, but he was irritating, lying on her bed for all the world as if he owned it, his shirt suggestively open at the collar, the navy blue of his suit accentuating the blue of his eyes. _Blue_ … Something niggled at the back of her mind, but she couldn't place it.

"And how'd you get Wilson to donate a cup of his sperm? What story did you tell _him_?"

"Funny you should ask," Pete said, once more clasping his hands behind his head, "because Amy didn't."

There was a cold, heavy lump in Cuddy's stomach. Blue eyes. Bright blue eyes, even though both Wilson and Amy had brown ones. Yes, it was possible for an infant with two brown-eyed parents to have blue eyes - but the odds were against it. "It wasn't Wilson's sperm, was it? It was yours."

If she'd hoped he'd deny it, she was disappointed. "A cup of the Speciality of the House," he confirmed, looking cocky and quite unrepentant. "What does it matter? It did the job."

"You got her pregnant with _your_ kid, pretending it was Wilson's, and you ask why it matters?" Her voice rose half an octave in pitch and about twenty decibels in volume. "What happens if Wilson does a paternity test? What would have happened if Amy had done so?"

"Relax, Lisa! Neither has as much as mentioned paternity tests. What does that tell you?" He paused rhetorically. "It tells you that they don't _want_ to know. Wilson screws the woman a few times; she isn't pregnant - but then she is; the kid is born via Caesarean section two weeks after the due date, weighing a mere six pounds. Yet Wilson asks no questions."

She sat down at his feet, wondering what went on in that clever brain of his that he couldn't see how nefarious his deed was. "You're okay with Wilson raising your child?"

"Sure. Why shouldn't I be?" Pete raised his eyebrows, his head twitching mockingly. "Are _you_ of all people insinuating that non-biological parents are not capable of giving their children a loving and nurturing environment?"

He was twisting her words, her very thoughts, before she uttered them. "No, and you know it! I'm saying that conceiving a child with the intention of dumping it on someone else for them to raise is callous towards the child and an act of treachery towards your friend."

He sighed as he sat up. "Lisa, millions of men sleep with women without protection, not caring whether they conceive a child, much less about how it will be raised. There's nothing 'unnatural' about it - that _is_ human nature, to scatter your genes as widely as possible in the hope that one or the other of your offspring will survive. As for callousness towards the child, Wilson will make a great dad. Joel is going to grow up in a more stable environment than the majority of his peers."

"And if Amy had kept him?" she couldn't help interjecting.

His left cheek twitched in acknowledgment of her objection. "Amy was a bit of a cop-out as a mom, but that was not to be anticipated. She seemed good mother material; I couldn't know that she has no staying power. You win some, you lose some."

She massaged her forehead with her fingertips, wondering how to get through to him. "And if Wilson had died? Then Joel would now …"

"… be adopted by some career-driven, control-freakish single mom. How dreadful!"

She slapped his left leg lightly - she still instinctively went for his left leg, even though there was no reason to avoid his right one any longer.

"Ouch!" he cried out in fake hurt, before saying seriously, "Look, the most likely outcome would have been for Wilson to have married Amy and for the three of them to live happily ever after - until the inevitable divorce. Wasn't that what you were expecting until you were overtaken by yesterday's events?"

She had to concede the point, but she nevertheless made a last-ditch attempt to make him see reason. "If Joel looks more like you than like Wilson - and I bet he will! - then Wilson will figure it out sooner or later."

"What if he does? Perhaps he'll be mad at me, but he won't take it out on the brat. He stuck with me for years for no other reason than that he was my friend; he won't abandon a child who is dependent on him."

"And Joel? What happens when he figures out that Wilson isn't his father?"

For the first time he looked uncertain; his fingers tugged at her bedspread while he frowned out of the window. "You and Wilson will dish up the same tale that you've been feeding Rachel, namely that his adopted parent is better able to take care of his needs than his biological one - which in this case will actually be the truth." He leaned forward to clasp her wrist. "Lisa, you wanted Wilson alive. Everything comes at a price, life especially!" He let go again.

She shook her head to clear it. There was something intrinsically flawed in his logic, but she couldn't quite place her finger on it.

"Joel shouldn't have to pay that price," she said slowly. " _We_ should. We're the ones who benefit; Wilson does, and so do I."

"Wilson _is_ paying. And if you feel the need to assuage your useless and unwarranted guilt, don't hesitate. If you think Joel needs to be compensated for the slight irregularities surrounding his conception, then smother him in motherly affection!" He waited until she nodded in agreement, and then he swung his legs off the bed and pulled a tie from his pocket. "If you want to reach your gala dinner on time, we'll have to leg it."

She cast a glance at the bedside clock, another in the mirror, and suppressed a shriek. Her hair was still a mass of unruly curls, her make-up rudimentary at best, and she had a sum total of five minutes to do something about it.

It wasn't until the chairman of the board was into the twelfth minute of his speech extolling the new dean's virtues and expressing his hope for maximum gain to the hospital at minimum cost that she realised with a thud that she'd made the lousiest bargain of the almost fifty years of her life. She'd been manipulated into mothering Gregory House's offspring without managing to extract any sort of reciprocal benefit.


	26. Foetal Histories

Pete had been trying to reach Lucas Douglas ever since Wilson had turned up with the ankle biter the evening before, but to no avail. The man was either ignoring him or on a stake-out. When Douglas finally called back, it was at an inopportune moment: he was in the car with Lisa on their way to that shindig of hers.

"Yeah?" he said after checking the caller ID.

"You called," Douglas said.

He gave Lisa a quick glance but she was concentrating on the evening rush hour traffic. "Are you still working on the, uh, _patient_ I referred to you?" he asked.

"Not alone?" Douglas surmised.

"No. What about her?"

"You told me I could let up a bit once the baby was born."

Pete wanted to strangle the man. "Yeah, but I didn't say that you should stop treatment altogether."

"I didn't stop observing Amy. I just ... shifted priorities," Douglas said. "Besides, that has kinda sorted itself out. They're moving to California, so I can't observe them for you any longer."

Pete chewed on that for a few seconds. "When?"

"Sometime next month. Amy's fiancé - probably husband by then - is aiming for a career in Hollywood. He got cast in a commercial; he believes that'll be his big break. But if you want, I can organise someone for you there to continue the observation. I have contacts to private dicks on the West Coast."

Pete wasn't interested in having Amy observed now that the hostage was in Wilson's hands. "No, don't bother." More to the point was the question of whether Amy really intended to leave the munchkin with Wilson or whether she had some other agenda. "What about the tumour?"

"The ... ? Oh, you mean the _kid_. Interesting that you should ask."

 _Interesting?_ That wasn't the word he'd have used for the biggest intel fuck-up within his admittedly short memory. Wilson had been saddled with Amy's kid and he, Pete, hadn't gotten any sort of forewarning despite investing heavily in a private sleuth.

Douglas continued casually, "You might want to suggest to Wilson that he should do a paternity test."

Pete forced himself to breathe calmly. "Might I?"

"Yeah," Douglas said. "See, I tailed Amy when I heard that she was quitting her job to move to LA. She went to a lab that specialises in paternity tests."

"Fascinating," Pete said, his eyes darting to and fro as he sorted this piece of information into the jigsaw of the past two days. "And what conclusion do you draw from that?"

Douglas, oblivious to his unease, continued with unimpaired cheer, "That Wilson isn't the kid's dad."

Pete's throat tightened. If Douglas of all people had figured out the truth, then the shit was about to hit the fan. "Explain," he rasped.

"See, Baby Mommy runs a paternity test on the kid. That wouldn't be surprising if Wilson doubted his paternity, but we both know that he doesn't. He _wants_ to believe the kid is his. Which means that _Amy_ doubts his paternity, and that's interesting. So I dug around, and guess what? This guy, the one Amy is engaged to now, he's been dating her on and off since high school. Childhood sweetheart and all that. Cute, isn't it?

"But you know how it is with these on-and-off thingies: there's angry sex, there's break-up sex, there's make-up sex, there's in-between sex, there's you-name-it sex - I figure the fitness trainer is the real dad, but Amy has no intention of telling Wilson that. She wants the best of both worlds: Wilson's child support _and_ high school sweetheart as baby daddy. Sweetheart, for his part, wants to be sure he's the dad rather than raise Wilson's kid, especially now that they're moving out of Wilson's babysitting radius, so he wants a paternity test to make sure."

And the test result had been negative, which explained why Amy had opted to give Joel to Wilson: the guy she was screwing didn't want to raise another man's child. Fair enough; there was no reason why a child shouldn't be raised by his birth father.

There was another explanation: Amy had taken a look at her son's eyes, had thought long and hard about her insemination, and had come to the same conclusion as Lisa, namely that Wilson wasn't the father. So, she'd gotten hold of Wilson's DNA (say, by spiriting away his coffee cup after one of their meet-ups) and had run a paternity test with that. When she'd gotten the result (negative), she'd set to thinking, and the net result of her rumination was that she was in deep shit. She'd been conned by someone professing to be Wilson's friend, a creepy oddball whom she hardly knew, whose paternity she'd have to prove via a court order, and who'd probably only pay child support after subjecting her to a protracted legal battle. _If_ he was the father. For all Amy knew, the sperm sample could have come from someone else altogether. Caught between a boyfriend who didn't want to raise someone else's child and the fear that Wilson would stop paying child support once he discovered the truth, she'd decided to hand her son over to Wilson. And now she was running as far away as she could, to make sure that Wilson couldn't file a customer complaint and return the product when he realised that it was defective.

Which explanation was the correct one? He'd opt for the first one if Amy had previously given any indication that she wanted Wilson to raise the child. After all, it wasn't exactly news that her boyfriend wasn't the progenitor. He'd opt for the second one if saddling Wilson with a child that wasn't his made any sort of sense. Then again, nothing Amy had done so far made sense: she'd slept with Wilson, allowed Pete to get her pregnant with a cup of semen, and had kept the foetus. Placing another man's child in Wilson's custody could be seen as an item worthy to be added to the list of crappy choices she'd made so far.

"Are you still there?" Douglas asked.

"Yeah," Pete said absently, going through the combinations and permutations of both possibilities. Did it make a difference which of the two it was? Not as long as Amy kept her mouth shut, and why shouldn't she? She stood to lose if Wilson figured out that the sprog wasn't his.

"I guess Wilson can discontinue child support payments," Douglas mused at the other end of the line. "It's not like Amy will sue him, given the circumstances."

No, of course not. She couldn't, now that she didn't have physical custody.

"You owe me two grand," Douglas said.

 _Two grand?_ He was supposed to pay the gumshoe two thousand dollars for missing the fact that Amy was playing Hansel and Gretel with her baby? Yet what choice did he have? The last thing he needed was Douglas dropping by and unfolding his theory about Joel's parentage to Wilson. If Wilson did a paternity test, ... . The mind boggled.

"Fuck!" Pete said.

"Payable in cash. I don't take credit cards."

"Fuckity fucking fuck." He felt marginally better after getting that off his mind. Lisa glanced at him before returning her attention to navigating the car across two congested lanes. "Yeah, okay, I'll pay."

"When?"

Pete disconnected the call and pocketed his phone.

"What was that about?" Lisa asked, drawing up in the parking lot of the hotel that hosted the fundraiser.

There was no sense in lying to her; it was possible that he'd need her help to keep Douglas away from Wilson once the PI cottoned onto what had really happened and scented the blackmail potential behind it. "It was Douglas."

"Who, Lucas?"

"Yeah. I've been paying him to observe Amy. She's moving to California."

Lisa slowed to a crawl. "I don't get it. Why would she do that? Why would she put a whole continent between herself and her child? Or do you think she'll come and get Joel before she leaves?"

"No," Pete said heavily. "It seems that moving away and dumping the crotchfruit are connected somehow in the space-time continuum."

The car behind them honked. Lisa raised an apologetic hand and drew into the nearest parking space. "What mother does that?" she asked. "What mother abandons her child? It's against nature."

He plucked his lower lip. "No, it isn't."

" _You_ always say that we're hard-wired to nurture our offspring."

"Nope, we're hard-wired to _ensure their survival_. There's a difference."

"And abandoning an infant helps - how?" she asked sarcastically.

"You're in Family Healthcare; you must have heard of the Cinderella effect." What a stupid term! Children being abused by their step-parents weren't a fairy tale about to happen; they faced years of suffering, potentially ending in death.

Lisa turned to him with horror printed all over her features. "You think that Amy's fiancé was abusing the baby?"

"After he's been screaming continuously for six hours even Wilson wants to chuck him out of the window, and Wilson _believes_ he's the father. Amy's fuck-buddy doesn't. The kid is colicky, Amy has the baby blues, she's living with a guy who isn't the kid's biological father," he said, listing the facts. "No matter whether the guy has been abusive so far or not, the kid is safer with Wilson than with Amy. And subconsciously Amy is probably aware of that."

"And you have nothing whatsoever to do with this?" Lisa asked skeptically. "You didn't pay Lucas to threaten her or anything?"

"No," he said, rubbing his forehead tiredly. "No, but I _should_ have. I should have realised that the situation was a disaster waiting to happen. The kid could have died."

Lisa clasped his wrist. "But nothing happened. Everything is fine; your child is safe."

He stared out into the darkness for a long moment. "Yes," he finally said. "But no thanks to me."

* * *

Plan A was to hit the bar; if he got the rats that were running around in the labyrinth of his mind plastered, maybe they'd slow down. Unfortunately, the people who had organised the gala dinner were no fools: the bar wasn't scheduled to open till after dinner. Plan B, behaving in such a manner that Lisa would be happy if he left early, was nipped in the bud straight after he told the cloakroom attendant that her dress displayed her silicon pads to great advantage.

"There's only one thing standing between Wilson and the truth about Joel, and that's me," Lisa told him curtly. She paused to let the threat sink in. "Do _not_ insult anyone, do _not_ get wasted, do _not_ sneak out the door, back or front. Behave, and if you can't control your tongue, then keep your teeth clamped on it!"

His only comfort was that Lisa was as miserable as he was and a lot tenser. Her smile was fixed as she greeted the guy who had superseded her, a smooth, poised thirty-something-year-old who was clearly going places, and although most of her colleagues were friendly enough, a few made no secret of their _schadenfreude_. One of them, a cardiologist whose name he couldn't remember although he'd seen him around the hospital, even came over to them grinning smugly and said, "How the mighty have fallen, Lisa!"

"Nice to see you too, Ed," Lisa said, never letting her smile slip. "Did you know that Ryan is thinking of moving cardiac rehab from Cardiology to General Medicine? No? You should talk to him about it."

Ed's grin faded. "You can't stop scheming, can you?"

"I'll be generous and give you some good advice: instead of making erroneous assumptions about what I'm up to, you should try to figure out why your new dean isn't interested in keeping you happy. I'll give you a hint: it's because you've pissed off so many of your colleagues that no one will take your side should you decide to challenge him. Have a pleasant evening, Ed."

"Need any help keeping him in check?" Pete asked when Ed had stalked off in a huff. "Like, keying his car or taking compromising pictures of him with the pharma technician or ..."

"What, Ed is doing Caroline?"

"Who's talking about Caroline? I mean the other one, the nerdy looking one who is always sucking on his pencil. And by 'pencil' I mean ..."

"Thanks, but no. I've got him under control. Let's sit down; my feet are killing me already."

The seating arrangement wasn't designed to improve his mood. Although Chase and his Flavour of the Day (a long-legged blonde with too much make-up) were seated at their table, they were on Lisa's other side, so that he could neither gossip with Chase nor leer down the babe's cleavage as comfortably as he desired. To add misery to discomfort, the head of oncology, Pearson, and his wife were seated next to him. Undoubtedly Lisa had engineered the seating order with Wilson in mind; Wilson, who was due to ease back into work life over the next weeks, would have been keen to exchange notes with Pearson. Pete, however, could have done very well without Pearson's company, and if Pearson's dour expression was anything to go by, the feeling was mutual.

Throughout the dinner, Lisa and Chase carried on an animated discussion in subdued tones, while Chase's floozie, bored and increasingly miffed, looked around for other distractions. She looked over at Pete from under her eyelashes as she licked chocolate mousse off her spoon, giving her tongue a seductive twist.

Oh, okay! He wouldn't mind hitting that. There was little chance of more than a grope in a dark corner, not when he was here as Lisa's protective shield, but getting Chase's date away from the others, overcoming her token resistance and testing how far she'd be prepared to go might provide some entertainment value. It would certainly be more amusing than Chase and Lisa's haggling over details of payment, budget and staffing matters.

"I'm not sure whether it's worth while giving up my present post in order to become a 'team leader'. It doesn't sound half as attractive as 'department head'," Chase was saying.

"Maybe," Lisa countered. "But you'll have budgetary independence: you can use the funds that I'll allocate to Diagnostics in any way you please. You won't get that anywhere else."

"Foreman ... ," Chase began.

"The last thing Foreman will do," Lisa interrupted him, "is allow you to challenge his leadership. No matter what he offers you financially, he won't give you as long a leash as I will, and you know it. Besides," she added shrewdly, "you're in no position to bargain. You've been away from diagnostics for five years."

"The bar has opened. I'm getting a drink," the blonde said, pushing her chair back abruptly. "You want anything, Rob?"

"Get me a bourbon," Chase said, adding a 'please' as an afterthought.

His date left, swaying her hips and casting a glance over her shoulder at Pete. He waited a token thirty seconds before saying, "I'll go get something too." He didn't ask Lisa what she wanted.

Lisa looked up when his chair scraped back, narrowed her eyes at the blonde's sashaying ass and nodded slowly. She turned to Chase, "I'll introduce you to a few people from General Medicine." She rose, and under cover of straightening Pete's collar and tie she hissed, "Don't poach on Chase's territory!"

"He has so much real estate that he can't keep an eye on every piece of property," he said. When she raised her eyebrows warningly he added, "Don't worry, I won't ruin your little deal."

He drifted over to the bar where Chase's date was seated already, one long leg crossed over the other. She smiled invitingly at him, so he moved to her side.

"Hey," she said, patting the stool next to hers. "Greg, isn't it?"

"Yeah," he said. He couldn't remember her name; Chase probably couldn't remember it either. And in a day or two neither of them would remember her.

"I had no idea this gala thing would be so boring. Rob should have warned me that he was only coming to talk shop with your girlfriend."

"She isn't my girlfriend," he said.

"No?" She didn't hide her disbelief.

"No, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here with _you_." Hell, he sounded like a preacher.

His companion wasn't put out in the least. "I like a man with morals," she said, placing a hand on his arm. He stared at the hand.

"Why? Because the contrast emphasises your personality?"

She laughed as though he'd made a joke. Either she didn't get that she was being insulted or she didn't care. "You're funny! I like you. I was beginning to think this evening would be a complete waste of time." She tossed her head. "Your not-girlfriend's a bitch, isn't she, to lead Rob on like that! He said she promised to make him head of a department, but she's backing out now."

He didn't like that any better than the assumption that he was the kind of person to cheat on his girlfriend; Lisa was manipulative and a royal pain in the ass at times, but that didn't give a total stranger the right to call her a bitch. He already regretted following Chase's bored bimbo to the bar.

The bartender put two drinks in front of the blonde before turning to Pete with an enquiring look. "A beer," he said, feeling a lot more charitable towards Lisa than when he'd arrived at the gala dinner. His present frustration wasn't on her; he could blame Amy, Douglas, Wilson, or even himself for the mess they were in, but none of this was even remotely Lisa's fault.

"He's an idiot if he was banking on cashing in on a promise that she could only have kept if she had become dean at this hospital," he said.

"I don't know about that," the blonde said with a toss of her head, "but he told me that he handed in his resignation last week, so if he doesn't get this job, he's sunk. That's why we're here; we were invited to this really cool party in Princeton, but Rob insisted he had to come here tonight." She pouted. "But there's no reason why you and I shouldn't have some fun since we're both stuck here."

"You'd better take Chase his drink before he comes looking for it," he said, pointing at the whisky tumbler with its melting ice cubes.

"Only if you'll wait for me," she purred, getting up and bending over to pick up the drinks, affording him a good view of her cleavage.

"Sure," he lied. He watched her make her way towards Chase, who was standing next to Lisa talking to a group of doctors at the other end of the room.

Something was off in what she'd just told him: Lisa wasn't above making promises that she had no intention of keeping, but what idiot handed in his resignation without having a new job well within grasp? Although Chase hadn't known initially that Lisa was only interim dean at Philadelphia Central, he must have realised his mistake once he'd arrived at the hospital to conduct the transplant. He should have figured out that farming out her organs wasn't improving Lisa's chances of changing her deanship status from 'temporary' to 'permanent'. If he was so keen on the job, then he should also know that a West Coast upstart had supplanted Lisa a month ago. So why the hell had he handed in his resignation?

"Your beer," the bartender said. He picked it up wordlessly and got up, moving around the edge of the room in order to escape being noticed by Chase's girl when she returned.

Maybe Chase had an offer from somewhere else, a good one. But then, why still court Lisa when she obviously couldn't deliver the goods? He had Chase down as a gambler, but this wasn't a good gamble. A good gamble was one where you knew the odds but saw a possibility of beating them, not one where you believed they were better than they actually were. This was a reckless gamble, one that he couldn't win. Unless, of course, he had nothing to lose ...

His progress along the back wall was stopped by an obstacle: a photographer with a state-of-the-art camera on a tripod was busy taking pictures of various groups in the room. He had little compunction about ruining the pictures she was taking by walking in front of her lens, but her camera attracted his attention. It was a Hasselblad H5D; he'd heard of them, but he'd never seen one in action. He edged closer to the wall behind her in order to observe the camera in action, but when you were well over six feet tall unobtrusiveness was an elusive quality.

The photographer must have spotted him out of the corner of her eye, for without taking her eyes off her subject she said, "Just a moment, and then you can pass."

A few seconds later she straightened and said, "Thanks for waiting."

"Can I ... take a look?" he asked, pointing at the camera.

She stared at him, her smile fading. When she said nothing at all, he said, "I take it that's a no." Possessive and paranoid about her camera, he supposed. Not surprising: this Hasselblad cost more than a car.

She snapped out of her daze. "No, no!" she protested. "You can look. It was just that ... I was surprised to see you, Dr House. You're the last person I expected to see here."

She stepped back and gestured for him to come closer to the camera, but by now _he_ had frozen instead. The camera was too expensive for the woman to be a doctor at Philadelphia Central indulging in her hobby for the evening. (Besides, people at the hospital mostly knew him simply as Wilson's friend 'Pete'.) She was surprised at seeing him here because she believed he had no business to be where Lisa was, which meant that she came from his pre-amnesia past.

So far, he had never been recognised by anyone, either at Philadelphia Central or anywhere else (other than PPTH), and when Lisa or Wilson introduced him as Greg House, no one seemed to associate anything with his name, positive or negative. He supposed that the scandal surrounding the car accident had been a regional affair while his fame as a diagnostician was restricted to a small circle of experts. Last year in Baltimore another speaker had claimed to know him, but even that person had admitted that he wouldn't have recognised him if he hadn't seen his name on the conference programme. This was the first time since the anniversary gala at PPTH that someone from his past had recognised his face, and he had no idea who this person was.

"I haven't a clue who you are," he stated baldly. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

She didn't take umbrage. "That's okay; you must have a lot of patients. Emma Sloan," she said, introducing herself. "You saved my son's life ten years ago."

"That's nice," he said, hoping he'd be able to escape before she got sentimental and started gushing out her gratitude.

"Maternal mirror syndrome," she added.

Now that _was_ interesting. "And both of you survived?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You really don't remember, do you?"

"Nope." He examined the camera, not because he was interested any longer, but to pre-empt further conversation about his person and his past. "May I?" he asked and started taking pictures before she could object.

The camera was definitely a great toy. He took a few pictures of Lisa talking to her new boss before pausing to examine the result. Not bad, he decided, but his pictures weren't anywhere near as good as the ones the photographer had taken earlier. He scrolled through her pictures, trying to figure out what it was - lighting, camera angle or sheer luck - that gave her pictures both depth and immediacy, making his appear flat in comparison. He caught the visual reality of his subjects; _she_ caught the driving force behind the people she photographed. There was Ed the cardiologist among a crowd of doctors, separated from the people around him as though surrounded by an invisible wall; Pearson and his wife, sitting next to each other, together and yet apart, the silence between them tangible; the new dean, Ryan Andrews, talking to a benefactor, brashly confident and cocky.

Emma Sloan was definitely too good to waste her talent on the Philadelphia Central Hospital Annual Gala Dinner. "What's someone like you doing at a low-brow event like this?" he asked.

She didn't deny that she was too good for the do. "Doing Lisa a favour. She wanted the pictures for the hospital's new website and for their annual report."

"More like doing her new boss a favour, I'd say."

"She asked before she knew that she wouldn't be getting the job, and I'm always happy to oblige her."

"She could have un-asked you when she got usurped," he pointed out.

"That would have been petty, wouldn't it? It was all fixed up already, the board was informed that they'd have a star photographer, etc., etc." She peered past his arm at the picture he was examining. "Ah, Dr Chase. Lisa said she'd invited him. I must go and say hello to him." She paused, then added, "Too bad about him."

He looked up from the camera in surprise. She smiled diffidently. "He doesn't look happy," she said. "He was such a ... a hopeful youngster. And so in love with that other young doctor. Dr Cameron, her name was. What happened?"

He shrugged as he tried to remember what he'd heard about Chase and Cameron. "They got married, they got divorced - the usual. No big deal. He's fine."

"You think so?"

She glanced over to the table where Chase was now sitting by himself, toying idly with a half-full tumbler. As they watched, Chase picked up his tumbler and emptied it in one gulp. He looked around, and then he got up with the glass in his hand and moved towards the bar.

"So he likes his liquor," Pete said dismissively. "So what?"

She smiled sadly. "I've seen this too many times not to know the signs: the edginess before the bar opens, that feeling of relief once the alcohol hits the blood stream, the craving for the next drink, the loss of control somewhere along the way."

She turned to rummage in her bag, ostensibly to get another lens, but he could see she was biting her lip. She straightened and said, "Let's hope he doesn't pass out tonight. That would be awkward for Lisa."

Indeed it would: Lisa had already introduced Chase as a potential diagnostician to a number of people. She'd look like a complete idiot if Chase ended up under the table. Chase's alcoholism was obvious to him and had been so for as long as he could remember (meaning, since last year), but to the best of his knowledge Lisa spent little or no time with Chase. It was anyone's guess whether she knew, but even if she did, what was she supposed to do? Tell the bartender not to serve him?

"I'll take care of it," he told her, returning the Hasselblad.

"May I take a few pictures of you?" she asked. "I'd like to show them to my son."

He nodded, standing awkwardly while the shutter clicked.

She grimaced. "These are no good: you're too aware of being photographed." Lowering the camera she said, "I'll try later when you're not feeling observed."

"Good luck with that," he said, moving away; he didn't intend to stay much longer. A few steps on he paused. "That photo series of Lisa's kid in her hall, did you take it?" He'd noticed the pictures straightaway the first time he'd entered Lisa's place: there was a black-and-white picture of Rachel for every year of her life, an on-going documentary of her development, each picture unique and of amazing vitality, the whole series pervaded by a sense of unity.

She looked up from her camera, surprised. "Yes, I did. I do a session with Rachel every year. It's my 'thank you' to Lisa for saving my son."

His mouth twitched upwards in a half-grin. "Didn't you say _I_ saved him?"

" _Both_ of you saved him. If _you_ have anyone whose picture you want taken, just say the word. Do you have children?"

"No," he said automatically. And then his brain froze. "No," he said once more, forcefully. "I don't need any pictures taken."

"That's what you said ten years ago," the photographer said. "If you change your mind about that, just let me know." She dug in her pocket and pulled out a card. He glared at it without taking it. She smiled and pocketed it again. "Lisa has my contact details."

"I won't need them," he muttered as he strode towards the bar where Chase was sitting, downing his next drink.


	27. The Morning After

Wilson's arm was numb, his brain on autopilot. 'Ten paces down the entryway, turn around, ten back again, through the door into the living room, three paces forward, once around the coffee table, five along the window, back again to the door ( _don't bump against the frame_ ), and then start from the beginning again.' At the rate he was going he'd have to replace the rugs when the owners of the apartment came back. 'Ten paces ...'

The door to the apartment opened. (He hadn't heard a key turning, but chances were that his ear, attuned to Joel's roughly ninety decibel, ignored everything of a different pitch and volume.) Cuddy surveyed the scene and then advanced with arms outstretched. He handed Joel over gratefully before stumbling into the living room and sinking down on the couch. His legs, now that he wasn't pacing, felt like jelly.

It took Cuddy a mere minute to make Joel's angry yells subside into mewling whimpers. (He told himself that it was the vigour of her steps, brisk after a healthy night's sleep.) When Joel was quiet enough that they could communicate, she asked, "Where's Julia?"

He opened his eyes to squint at his watch. It was only nine o'clock, although he felt as though he'd been on his feet for hours since Julia left. "She left around seven. She wanted to be back in Princeton at eight because of your mother."

"Well, yes," Cuddy cut in impatiently. "But that doesn't explain why _Pete_ is snoring in my guest room. Where did Julia sleep?"

Wilson closed his eyes again, trying to concentrate. "Joel got colicky while Julia and Rachel were here, so finally Julia took Rachel upstairs and came back here to help. She slept here last night so we could take turns with Joel. Don't worry, she put the baby phone in Rachel's room, so we would have heard ..." He trailed off, realising that they wouldn't have heard Rachel, not over the racket that Joel had been making.

Cuddy didn't latch onto that, probably because Joel was blissfully quiet at the moment. "And Pete?" she asked again.

"I sent him a text message telling him to stay away, because of Julia. Hang on, didn't you come back together?"

"No," Cuddy said tersely.

"Oh. Well, I haven't a clue how or why ... . I guess he figured your guest room was a safe haven since Julia was down here. Though if Julia had gone back upstairs, he'd have been royally screwed."

"He's royally screwed as it is. He must have been pretty much wasted if he thought facing me was a better idea than facing Julia," Cuddy said viciously. She turned away with a grimace. "Have you had breakfast?"

When exactly was he supposed to have eaten? So far, he hadn't even gotten as far as the fridge.

"Come with me; I'll make you something," Cuddy said. Without waiting for an answer she headed for the door. Wilson followed her, picking up Joel's carrier, a pacifier and a blanket.

Upstairs Cuddy passed Joel back to Wilson so she could make pancakes. Wilson paced the kitchen awkwardly, patting Joel on the back, until Cuddy slid a plate onto the table.

"Umm, I take it the evening didn't go well," Wilson said, sitting down and trying to eat with one hand while he held Joel with the other. Finally he gave up and put Joel in his carrier, eyeing him warily as he laid him down. Joel, however, continued sucking his fist, gazing up at Wilson innocently.

"You don't fool me," Wilson said. "The moment I start eating, you're going to scream again, aren't you?" He picked up his fork without taking his eyes off Joel. Joel yawned. Wilson crammed a bite into his mouth and swallowed without chewing it. Joel's eyes began to droop. "Devil's spawn," Wilson said.

"Eat," Cuddy ordered in a low voice.

Wilson didn't wait any longer. He demolished the pancakes in front of him in record time and didn't protest when she placed a second plate in front of him. By the time Rachel appeared, he was into his third plate of pancakes and his second cup of coffee and wondering whether he could ask Cuddy to fry a steak for him.

"Shall I call Pete for breakfast?" Rachel offered.

"Yes," Wilson said, even as Cuddy said, "No."

"Oh-kay," Rachel said, eyeing both adults doubtfully.

"What happened?" Wilson asked.

Cuddy looked pointedly at Rachel.

"You can talk in front of me," Rachel said. "I won't listen."

"Eat your breakfast," Cuddy ordered, putting a plate in front of her.

"What did Pete do?" Rachel probed with unholy glee.

"Never you mind."

They sat in silence while Rachel finished her meal.

"Bowel programme," Cuddy ordained. Rachel scowled, but left. There was still no sign of Pete; it was anyone's guess whether this was a direct result of last night's carousing or whether he was avoiding a location that harboured Cuddy _and_ a selection of very sharp knives.

"What happened?" Wilson asked again, not because he particularly wanted to know, but because there was no avoiding this.

"No idea. One minute he was there, the next he was gone. He disappeared around ten, leaving me exactly in the position I was trying to avoid. Actually it was even worse than if I'd gone without a date: I looked like a complete fool."

Wilson lifted his hands in a placatory gesture. "Cuddy, you didn't expect him to sit through the entire dinner, did you? He showed good will by accompanying you, and it could have been worse. At least he snuck out quietly instead of insulting your colleagues or one of the attending bigwigs."

Placing her hands flat on the table, Cuddy leaned forward to glare at Wilson. "He _may_ have snuck out quietly, but he took Chase with him and let him get wasted at the next bar. I was left to deal with Chase's date, who was stranded in Philly without a ride back to Princeton. What is his fucking issue here?" She whirled around, taking out her frustration by slamming the dishwasher door resoundingly. "Get him out of my apartment before I complete what he was doing to himself when he fried his brain!"

Wilson sighed. "Look, Chase would have gotten drunk anyway. That's what alcoholics do. His date was probably better off with whatever you organised than driving back with him."

Cuddy looked confounded. She twisted the pendant of the chain she was wearing. "What have you heard about Chase?" she asked him.

He wondered how much he should tell her. There had to be a reason why Chase had attended the gala dinner, a reason that was in all likelihood work-related. He was obliged to Chase and didn't want do him any harm, but - he was even more obliged to Cuddy. "Allison says he's turning up for work reeking of liquor; it's only a question of time before he gets fired if he stays at PPTH."

"So Pete takes him to a bar!" Cuddy shook her head. "Only a guy would think that taking someone with alcohol issues to a bar is a fun way to end a tedious evening."

"Cuddy, you can't save the whole world," Wilson said tiredly.

Cuddy threw up her arms in annoyance. "Well, forgive me for trying to keep my little corner of it intact!" she snapped. "And House really should know better."

She'd referred to House by his real name; she only did that when she was fatigued or really, really pissed or both. Much as he would have preferred to stay seated for as long as Joel remained quiet, he saw the need for damage control. "I'll take Joel out for a walk and take Pete with me," he said, getting up. "It'll be good for both of us."

At the door he turned around. Long-term damage control meant figuring out what game was being played here. He'd hardly be able to keep House and Cuddy out of each other's hair if House was actively trying to sabotage whatever Cuddy was up to. "What's your stake in Chase, anyway?"

Cuddy hesitated, biting her lip. "I want to establish a diagnostic team at Philadelphia Central. I need Chase for that."

Wilson turned this piece of information over in his mind, wondering what House's objection to Cuddy's scheme might be. Was it possible that House was considering a return to the US via Philadelphia Central and Cuddy's largesse? The notion was crappy, but - stranger things had happened and Cuddy was a soft touch. She had taken House back after his stint at Mayfield, when his addiction issues had become a well-publicised fact and no other hospital would touch him with a ten-foot pole. The thought of House back here in the vicinity, no matter how bug-ridden the plan for reinstating him as a diagnostician, made his heart beat faster. "If you're looking for someone to head diagnostics, why don't you take House? He doesn't have a job at the moment other than those lectures of his, I think. He got fired from Gloucestershire Hospital six weeks ago."

"Wilson, there's no way I can sell Gregory House to the board of Philadelphia Central."

Wilson chose to ignore the subtext blinking in neon yellow, the one that said, _If I employed the guy who ran his car through my house, I'd lose my standing: I'd be considered weak or insane or both._ "You persuaded PPTH to take him when he was practically a nobody with a very iffy reputation for discipline," he said.

"He was young, had recently published benchmark papers and had years of active service ahead of him. Even if he'd spent the remainder of his days swabbing crotches in the clinic, he'd have profited the hospital. He's close to sixty now, with known addiction issues and no licence," Cuddy pointed out.

"Guy's and Gloucestershire Hospital didn't care about the licence," Wilson interjected.

"We're not at Guy's or Back-of-beyond here; we're next door to the board that cashed in his licence. There's no way I'd be able to hold onto my tenuous position if I advocated employing him at the hospital. And frankly, I don't want to."

Wilson couldn't fault her for her stand, which was eminently sensible, although it was regrettable that she should show circumspection _now_ of all times. House could, of course, give PPTH and Cameron a try, but Cuddy's successor there was no more flexible than House's former boss at Guy's Hospital. It would merely be history repeating itself. Foreman in Seattle was another option, but if House chose to go there, he would be giving up his lecturer status for the sake of a job of doubtful duration in a place that was only marginally closer to the East Coast than England was. All things considered, maybe House's plan to return to the US via Philadelphia Central wasn't that stupid after all - if that was his plan.

"He doesn't need the money," Cuddy said.

He supposed that was meant to sweeten the bitter pill. House had inherited a tidy sum from his mother and his birth father, who, never having had a family of his own, had been 'rolling in it', as House said. But this wasn't about money: House needed something to occupy his brain, otherwise he'd turn destructive in no time whatsoever. "So instead of a sober, experienced diagnostician you're going to employ a surgeon who is on the verge of getting fired for his addiction. Sounds like a plan!"

Cuddy leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms folded across her chest in defiance. "Chase has years of experience too. House kept his addiction under control for a long time, and …"

"I doubt Chase can."

"… and Chase is free to bring House or anyone else in as a consultant provided he doesn't exceed his budget."

So that was Cuddy's master plan: to have Chase bear the responsibility for employing House. "Ah, 'buy one, get one free'. That might work." He infused his voice with as much sarcasm as he thought he could get away with without getting into a heads-on confrontation with her.

He must have misjudged his cutting power, because Cuddy's eyes narrowed. "You never encouraged me to let go of House. In fact, you went out on a limb more than once so I wouldn't fire him. What's the difference between House and Chase?"

"Cuddy, don't you see the difference? House had a legitimate reason for taking pain medication."

"He was still an addict," Cuddy said in a hard voice, "but you not only encouraged me to keep him on, you even prescribed for him long after his addiction spiralled out of control. The patients don't care whether an addiction is 'legitimate' or not; they only care whether they'll live. A diagnostic team will give them that chance."

If Chase continued along the path he was treading, he'd go down and take Cuddy with him. But Wilson could do no more than warn Cuddy, and now he'd done so. He rolled himself off the doorframe and went to rouse House.

* * *

Cuddy felt a twinge of guilt; she was still weakened and perhaps she'd gone back to full-time work too early, but Wilson, too, was barely on his legs again and was now facing a major life change. Asking him to babysit House - Pete, she corrected herself, chagrined - wasn't fair. On the other hand, it would serve no useful purpose if she and Pete had another run-in in front of Rachel, which was what would inevitably happen if she had to deal with him after yesterday's fiasco. So she let Wilson go and sank into a chair once he'd left the kitchen, allowing her head to rest in her hands. A few minutes later Rachel wheeled herself into the kitchen.

"Mom, Wilson is taking Joel to the park. Can I go too? Wilson said I can."

"Okay, but wash your face before ..." Cuddy broke off when she realised that Rachel was already gone.

She had no idea why Chase's problems were getting to her to such an extent; it wasn't as though they were good friends or met frequently. But he'd been one of the few who'd stuck with her when the PPTH board had intrigued behind her back while Rachel was in hospital, and he'd been one of the _very_ few who hadn't felt awkward about visiting her and Rachel then or afterwards, during Rachel's long rehab period.

Yet there was no way she could fool herself into believing that Chase's alcohol consumption was leading him anywhere but straight down to hell. In House's case it had been easy to ignore the signs, to tell herself that he was using pain medication, not abusing it, and that he had everything under control, because he did have everything under control for a very long time. He'd been an addict, but a highly functioning one; given his pain levels it hadn't been clear whether he'd function better without the medication than with until he'd actually tried it and succeeded. In Chase's case, as in Wilson's, there was no doubt whatsoever: if he didn't stop drinking, he'd trash his liver and his life.

The men and the children were back in what seemed to be no time at all, arguing vociferously all the way from the elevator into the apartment.

"Wilson tripped, otherwise he'd have overtaken you," Rachel insisted, her voice carrying into the kitchen. She and Pete were apparently having one of their irritatingly long and repetitive arguments.

Wilson stumbled into the kitchen in his running gear and collapsed on one of the chairs. His hair, still short and now heavily streaked with grey, was plastered to his forehead in damp strains and his T-shirt clung to his chest. His breathing was shallow and laboured, even though with Rachel and Joel along, their pace back from the park must have been leisurely.

Cuddy hastily got a bottle of water out of the fridge and passed it to him. "Idiots!" she muttered under her breath. Out loud she said, "Where's Joel?"

Rachel whirled in next, her face flushed from being out in the fresh air. "Can I have some orange juice?"

"What's the magic word?" Cuddy asked automatically.

"Now!"

Cuddy froze at the door of the fridge. She had no doubt where Rachel had learned that.

Rachel giggled. "I mean, 'please', Mom."

Cuddy unfroze and got a carton of orange juice from the fridge.

"Mom, Wilson _almost_ won."

"'There's no 'almost' won. I won; he lost." Pete had appeared in the kitchen doorway, the baby carrier slung over his arm, and was surveying the scene. He placed the carrier on the floor next to Wilson's chair, pulled out another chair and slumped into it.

"He would have won if you didn't have your blade. It's an unfair advantage." Rachel told him haughtily.

"Hey, I _need_ that blade. No leg," Pete protested, waving his hand at the missing limb.

"You're hardly a cripple. I'm a _real_ cripple." It was amazing how many of their arguments ended in a 'who's the greatest loser' contest.

"You'll be singing a different tune about 'unfair advantages' when the little electric motor that I'll build into your wheelchair helps you to win the wheelchair marathon at the Paralympics."

Rachel was instantly distracted from the question of fairness. "You'll put a motor in my wheelchair? Cool! When can you do it?"

Pete tipped his head to one side, examining her wheelchair. "It would have to drive the back wheels, so it would need to go …" Getting up, he crouched beside the wheelchair, peering behind one of the back wheels with a slight frown.

"Not happening," Cuddy said.

"Mo-om!" both Rachel and Pete whined.

"She's not your mom," Rachel snapped at Pete. Pete stuck his tongue out at her.

"You regularly knock over other children during recess," Cuddy said to Rachel. "What do you think will happen if your wheelchair is any faster than it is already?" She endured Rachel's accusing death-stare without blinking.

"Just do it anyway," Rachel said to Pete when Cuddy showed no sign of relenting.

After glancing at Cuddy, Pete said with the better part of valour, "Let's talk again when you turn eighteen."

Rachel gave the right wheel of her chair a twist with a flick of her wrist, sending the chair into a pirouette. "Grown ups are boring!" she muttered.

Cuddy ignored her, as she did Pete's longing stare at Wilson's water bottle. "How far did you guys run?"

"Just around the track in the park," Wilson hastened to reassure her, "and we kept an eye on Rachel the entire time. She timed our laps."

" _And_ I looked after Joel," Rachel chimed in.

"That's not what I meant," Cuddy said.

"Three miles," Pete said challengingly.

"Three … !" Cuddy's voice trailed off in dismay. She looked from one to the other. Wilson looked slightly guilty, Pete totally unrepentant. "I suppose it's no good telling you that this is totally crazy and utterly irresponsible?"

"None whatsoever," Pete affirmed. "I won, so I get to shower first."

"You only won because of your blade. And Wilson pushed Joel back to the apartment, so he had to work harder," Rachel protested, chipping in for Wilson as usual, although the object of her protective instincts showed no sign of appreciating her efforts.

Cuddy glanced surreptitiously at Wilson's legs under the table, poking out of his shorts like two sticks. Tremors were running up and down his sparse muscles. He'd probably used the stroller as a walker on the way home. Pete was so dead!

"Wilson's taking a shower first, and then he can lie down till dinner," Cuddy decreed.

Wilson smiled weakly. "Yes, Mom," he said, but when he made no attempt to rise, Cuddy gazed at him worriedly.

"She isn't _his_ mom either," Pete pointed out to Rachel. "Why aren't you slapping _him_ down? Favouritism, I call it."

Rachel stuck her tongue out at Pete while Cuddy rolled her eyes. There was just so much of this she could take. "How old are you guys?" she asked rhetorically.

"Fifty-seven," Pete answered, grinning.

"Nine," Rachel chimed in, mirroring his grin.

"You two combined have the maturity level of a five year old," Cuddy said.

Rachel giggled. "Do you even understand what your mom said?" Pete asked her.

"She said you're behaving like a baby," Rachel said. Wilson snorted.

From somewhere out in the entryway a cell phone jangled. Wilson looked up.

"I'll get it," Rachel said with a smile for Wilson.

There was an awkward silence in the kitchen while she was gone. Cuddy considered her options. Wilson was trying to hide his acute exhaustion in order to protect Pete from her justified ire. She could either try to offer help tactfully - but would Wilson appreciate having her help him shower and get changed, no matter what state she'd seen him in over the last months? - or she could give Pete the yelling he deserved and make him play nurse.

Pete had his head in the fridge, pretending he'd done no evil, neither yesterday nor today.

Rachel returned with Wilson's cell phone.

"Thanks," Wilson said with a smile for her, and then stared at the screen in puzzlement. After a moment he looked up at Pete. "It's a text message from Chase. Why would he text me?"

Pete merely grunted, but pulled his head out of the fridge.

Wilson frowned as he opened the message and read it once, and then a second time. Then he looked up at Cuddy. "I'm supposed to tell you this diplomatically, the way I tell my patients that their cancer is untreatable: he's at Mayfield, being admitted. He won't be able to come in to sign the papers on Monday. He hopes you'll keep the job for him, but he'd understand if you felt you couldn't, under the given circumstances. Oh, and he wouldn't mind having visitors."

Speechless, Cuddy stared from Wilson to Pete and back again. Wilson seemed as surprised as she was; Pete's face was expressionless.

"What did you do?" Wilson asked Pete.

" _Moi?_ " Pete said, pointing a finger at his own chest and pulling a ridiculous face.

Wilson narrowed his eyes.

Pete contemplated the tip of his Ossur blade. "I merely pointed out a few facts. I left it to him to interpret them."

"Such as?" Wilson probed.

"It _could_ happen that HR at Philadelphia Central gets wind of the fact that he pre-empted getting fired at PPTH by resigning in the nick of time. _If_ that happened, Lisa could hardly employ him. Nor could any other hospital that got the same information."

"Oh, God," Wilson said, propping an elbow on the table and massaging his forehead with his hand.

"What?" Pete said defensively.

"You think they're going to be any more eager to employ him when they hear that he's just come out of rehab? I speak from experience: applying for jobs after a stint in an institution isn't a walk in the park."

"You're right: let's wait until he loses it completely and gets fired. Or has a breakdown. Or tries to commit suicide. Or all three at the same time. That'll make him _so_ much more employable," Pete said.

"You blackmailed Chase into getting himself admitted to Mayfield?" Cuddy said slowly.

"I prefer to call it an intervention, but - yeah."

"Oh, damn you!" Cuddy said, blinking away tears of relief - why was she so maudlin these days? - and hugging him roughly round the waist. She knew that Pete had saved her from a gigantic mistake, because no matter what advice Wilson gave her, she'd have let her sense of obligation towards Chase (not only for sticking by her, but also for saving Wilson) guide her choices. She'd have trusted her luck and given him a job, only to be stuck with the kind of mess she'd dealt with at PPTH. And then she'd have been faced with much the same outcome: sooner or later she'd have paid for the decision with her job. Probably sooner rather than later, because she wasn't dean here; she was merely a department head and Chase was no maverick like House.

"Uh," Pete said, not responding, but not pulling away either. He smelled pungently of sweat, but underneath was that familiar spicy mix that was heady and comforting at the same time.

Cuddy stepped back after a moment, wrinkling her nose in exaggerated disgust to cover up her emotions. Giving Wilson a watery smile she asked, "Does he say when he'll be allowed visitors?"

"No, but I should think there'll be no restrictions. There's no reason why we shouldn't be allowed to see him at the weekend. Or is there?" Wilson asked turning to Pete.

Pete shrugged. "He's your run-of-the-mill alcoholic; nothing spectacularly interesting there."

"Will Chase come and stay with us when he's allowed to leave Mayfield, like Wilson?" Rachel suddenly piped up.

"What am I, the keeper of a halfway house?" Cuddy muttered, wondering whether she needed to worry her head about that too. Chances were that Nolan or whoever was responsible for Chase wouldn't want him living alone right after his release, but she doubted Chase had anyone he could go to.

Pete, overhearing her, promptly started whistling _House of the Rising Sun_.

"Ouch, woman! Don't poke me with those sharp bones of yours. You're going to buy that five-bedroom house that you can't afford, aren't you?" he asked, but it was more of a statement than a question. She hadn't quite decided yet ...

Pete continued inexorably, "Let out the upstairs to Wilson and his little ankle biter, then Chase can go and stay with him, and you'll get a babysitter for the two kids for free. Yes, I _know_ you think you're not a baby," he added, turning to Rachel, who had predictably opened her mouth to protest. "You tell me so about ten times per day."

Cuddy spun round to look at Wilson, who smiled somewhat shyly. "That's if you don't mind," he said. "We ... discussed it on the way back from the park. It doesn't make sense for me to return to New York now that Joel is staying with me anyway. Though I doubt that Chase will want to stay with us," he added as an afterthought. "After one night with Joel he'll be back on the booze."

Cuddy was nonplussed. "You _want_ to stay?" She had assumed that Wilson would want to return to his former life, either in New York or in Princeton, once he'd recovered sufficiently to manage on his own.

Wilson wetted the tip of his finger in the dew on his water bottle and drew lines on the table. Finally he said, "If it's okay with you."

"Yes. Yes, of course," Cuddy hastened to reassure him, blinking away tears for the second time. If she was to retain any street cred at all with those two, she'd have to get them out of her kitchen before she turned into a mushy mess of sentimentality. "Wilson can take a shower here while Pete goes downstairs. I've still got some of your laundry up here, Wilson; we'll find something for you to wear."

Rachel wheeled her chair around so that Wilson could take hold of the grips. "Here," she said, "you can wheel me to my room on your way to the shower."

"That's a great idea," Wilson said, leaning forward to pull himself upright. He stood somewhat unsteadily, but once he started pushing the wheelchair out of the kitchen, his gait became steadier and stronger.

If she gaped any more she'd turn into a codfish, Cuddy decided. Her daughter, her nine year old who scarcely knew that there was a world outside of Harry Potter, had caught on that Wilson was in no state to walk without support?

Pete, having gulped down half a bottle of water, burped loudly.

"I assumed you'd go for a civilised walk, not a three mile run," Cuddy said with asperity.

"He needs exercise to combat his depression," Pete said, clinically detached as usual.

She still wasn't convinced. "Can't you run slower? He's probably killing himself trying to keep up with you."

"Lady, that _was_ slow. I let him set the pace and only overtook him on the last lap. I'm not a complete ass, you know."

Yes, she did, but there was no way she was telling him that.

Pete gave his Ossur blade a fist thump. "With this, I'm probably faster than I ever was on my own two legs. Sometimes," he said, giving Cuddy a meditative look, "sometimes, second best isn't all bad." He sauntered out, saluting her with his water bottle as he went.


	28. Who's Daddy?

Wilson's phone buzzed during dinner, indicating an incoming message. When he reached for it he caught a hard glare from Cuddy. She lifted an eyebrow in Rachel's direction. Oh yeah, role model and all that. He smiled apologetically as he picked up his fork and continued eating.

"Excellent manners," House commented.

It buzzed again. House leaned over and pulled it out of Wilson's jacket pocket before Wilson could stop him. "It's Amy," he said.

"And this is dinner," Cuddy said. "Give Wilson his phone back."

Wilson stretched his arm across the table to take the phone from House, but House predictably tipped his chair back so that he was well out of Wilson's reach while he read the message with a scowl on his face. Then he levelled a piercing stare at Wilson. "She wants to meet you tomorrow at her attorney's. What's up with her? Does she want the rugrat back?" He seemed put out at the notion.

If Wilson didn't know House better he might be inclined to believe that House had grown fond of the baby during the past three days, but House had studiously avoided being around whenever Joel was awake. Wilson couldn't blame him: Joel spent most of his waking hours screaming, eating or pooping. There was the occasional smile or chortle that made up for it in Wilson's eyes, but House was impervious to baby cuteness.

Cuddy put down her fork. "Do you think she's having second thoughts?" she asked House, looking decidedly worried.

Wilson shook his head slightly, wondering when and how he'd missed the mysterious transition that both House and Cuddy had made from, 'Amy has to be persuaded to take Joel back,' to, 'She can't _seriously_ want Joel back, can she?' That Cuddy wouldn't want to return Joel after holding him in her arms (thus suffering a surfeit of bonding hormones) wasn't all that surprising; that she and House were discussing him, Wilson, behind his back was to be expected; that Cuddy considered House to be _the_ expert on Amy's motives was, however, unsettling.

Oh, crap!

"You're having Amy observed," he said to House.

"That surprises you?" House asked with no sign of remorse.

"House, will you Stop. Invading. My. Privacy? There's no reason to observe her. She is not a criminal out to get me, she's simply the mother of my child."

House looked genuinely surprised. "There was every reason to observe her: she had your sprog. What astounds me is that _you_ didn't have her observed."

Wilson rubbed his forehead. "This may come as a surprise to you, but relationships work via trust. I had to _trust_ Amy to do the best for Joel, just as she's gonna have to trust me from now on."

House twirled his fork much as he formerly used to twirl his cane. "Yeah, and that's worked out so well," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Amy didn't need your trust, she needed _help_. And until I'm sure she's accepting that help by leaving the parasite with you permanently, I'd rather be safe than sorry."

Wilson leaned back, eyeing House suspiciously. "What's your stake in this? Since when do you care about Amy?"

House shrugged nonchalantly, never missing a twirl. "Who says I care about Amy? You were getting your panties all in a twist over that poop machine, so I was looking out for you, making sure you didn't get hurt. Can't I care for a friend's welfare? " He trained innocent blue eyes on Wilson, batting his eyelashes.

This was Not Good. "I'd rather you didn't," Wilson said, trying for gentle firmness. "I can look after myself." He ignored the glance that House and Cuddy exchanged. "Besides," he added, "Amy only wants to finalise the paperwork giving me primary physical custody for Joel. Since we aren't married, I have to sign a form acknowledging paternity, and then she has to sign the papers agreeing to grant me physical custody. So, I suggest you call off whichever hound you've set on her. What time does Amy want to meet up with me and the attorney?"

House tossed the phone to him. "Five p.m."

"You can leave Joel with me," Cuddy offered.

"And don't bother about me. I'll find my own way to the airport," House said theatrically, with a _prima donna_ toss of his head.

Wilson ignored House - there were such things as cabs, even if House preferred not to spend his money on one whenever he could avoid it - and said to Cuddy, "Thanks, but I'll take him with me in case Amy has second thoughts about relinquishing him."

Cuddy and House exchanged glances again; so he hadn't imagined that they were colluding behind his back!

"Or _you're_ having second thoughts," House said, his eyes gleaming.

"No, I'm not. But I don't want to take advantage of her, and it'll be worse for Joel if Amy changes her mind once he's used to having me around. I'm pretty sure that at this stage any judge will rule in her favour if she should claim him again, and I don't want matters to get to the point where I have to go to court in order to obtain visitation rights."

"Don't you think that seeing Joel again will just confuse Amy?" Cuddy asked gently.

"Maybe," he answered, "but on the other hand it might help her to make up her mind one way or another. If she can't stick to her decision when she sees him, then maybe it was the wrong decision." House rolled his eyes in disbelief. Wilson said defensively, "Look, Amy has been fair to me about this. I owe it to her to be fair to her."

Besides, this might well be Amy's last chance to see Joel for a long time. She had sent him a cryptic text yesterday, saying they needed to get everything finalised because she was moving away. Heaven only knew what had suddenly induced her to start a new life. It struck him that if House was having Amy observed he might know all about the whys and wherefores.

"Do you ... ?" he began, but was interrupted by an untimely squawk from Joel, amplified by the baby phone. He sighed, pushing back his chair.

"No," Cuddy said forcefully. "You finish your meal. You haven't eaten a single meal in peace since Joel got here. Pete can take care of this."

House's stare was as astounded as his. "Not happening," House said with equal determination. "His scream machine, his problem."

"He needs a break. You can do it for once," Cuddy reiterated, turning to House.

"If you're so eager for Wilson to have a break, you take care of it," House said.

"He's ... ," Cuddy said, and then hesitated. "Wilson is your friend. I'll chip in once you're gone, but there's no harm in you taking care of your ... friend's son just this once before you leave." There was a peculiar emphasis in her voice that Wilson didn't quite get.

House and Cuddy glared at each other. "Don't try to force me into something I don't want or need," House said, his features setting into hard lines.

"You can't keep shirking ... ," Cuddy began.

Wilson rose. "Both of you, stop it. He's my kid, and I can manage. I'm a grown man, I'm a doctor; looking after a baby isn't going to kill me."

* * *

"What are we looking for?" Pete asked, idly pulling the bottom item out from under a stack of baby onesies, causing the pile to topple over. "The apartment is cluttered up with baby stuff; you can't possibly need any more. You have a life supply of diapers and more onesies than there are days in the year."

A saleswoman, looking over at him, frowned. Pete smiled a fake apology at her and moved on to catch up with Wilson, who was striding purposefully through the store pushing Joel's stroller. When Wilson had said he needed a few things, Pete had been thinking more along the lines of steak, chips and soda. They'd been eating at Lisa's place ever since Wilson had been saddled with the parasite, and after three days of rabbit food he needed a break.

"I need something for Amy," Wilson said obscurely.

Pete tipped his head to the side. "Amy is a size 8, not a newborn. There's a 'Victoria's Secrets' further down the mall, though," he added hopefully.

"I mean something that'll remind her of Joel," Wilson said. "A framed picture would be nice, but I don't have the time to get a decent one made. Besides, she's probably got tons of those. I was thinking along the lines of one of those footprint sets." He found the shelf with mementos and picked up a kit.

"Perhaps she doesn't want to be reminded of Joel," Pete suggested.

Wilson, reading through the instructions on the box, ignored him.

Pete turned it up a notch. "You're sending mixed signals: Amy will end up believing you don't want the kid, and then she'll give it to a foster family."

" _Him_ ," Wilson corrected him. "He's not an 'it'. And there's nothing 'mixed' about a little farewell present. It's meant as a thoughtful gesture with which I can show Amy that she'll always be Joel's mother no matter what, and that I'd like her to remain in touch with us. Though I'm sure she will anyway, but still," he added unconvincingly.

"Why would you want her to stay in touch?" Pete asked curiously. Amy drifting in and out of Wilson's life would only add another layer of complication without providing any sort of practical help.

"She's his mother, for goodness sake!" Wilson said. "Never mind, you don't have to understand or approve. Just accept it as a mystery that parents share, while the uninitiated masses have to stay outside, locked in the ice of eternal ignorance."

"You mean, it's hormonal?" Pete rolled a derogatory hand.

"Call it whatever you will; it's real, okay? Now shut up or wait outside with that cute little terrier. Maybe someone will bring a bowl of water for you too."

The brute Wilson was referring to had been yapping outside the store for the past fifteen minutes while his owner browsed through the maternity clothes section with ear buds jammed in tight and music turned up loud. Clever strategy, Pete decided. Perhaps he should get Wilson a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. Then Wilson would get more rest and be less grouchy. Grouchy!Wilson was no fun.

"The instructions say that the print will take thirty-six to forty-eight hours to set. That's too long. Maybe if I turn the hair dryer on it ... ," Wilson said.

Pete envisioned the evening at Wilson's apartment, with the hair dryer running and Joel bawling, and decided that he'd need the headphones for himself. "Take this one," he said, pointing at a sample footprint that hung from a hook next to the shelf.

"But ... that's not Joel's," Wilson said. "It's not even the right size," he added, preempting Pete's eye roll. "It looks like a newborn's footprint. Joel is almost nine weeks old now."

"Amy won't notice."

"Of course she will. She's not an idiot."

Actually, she was, but that was beside the point. "She won't notice because she doesn't care. She'll probably chuck it in the nearest trash can."

"You're equating her ability to estimate footprint sizes with her level of maternal caring?" Wilson asked, a quizzical expression on his face.

Pete had a feeling he wouldn't like whatever conclusion Wilson was reaching. "Yes," he said carefully. "Because people who are indifferent ..."

Wilson didn't give him a chance to complete his thought process. "Then that makes you a paragon of caring. I'm sure you can estimate Joel's foot size to a tenth of an inch."

He stared at Wilson. "I ...," he began. Then he looked away. "Forget it," he said abruptly. He grabbed a kit from the shelf and thrust it at Wilson. "We'll put it in the oven with the heat on low," he said. "By tomorrow afternoon it'll be hard as a rock."

He marched out of the shop and over to a display of watches in the jewellery store opposite Carter's. Wilson joined him a moment later. They stood side by side in silence, Wilson half leaning on the stroller.

"How do you like that one?" Wilson asked.

Pete followed his gaze. Wilson wasn't looking at the watches; he was examining rings. Pete mentally changed Wilson's marital threat level from yellow (elevated) to orange (high).

"Are you sure you want that one, honeybuns?" he said. "Sapphire really isn't your colour. Now, emeralds or rubies accentuate the golden flecks in your chocolate brown eyes."

"Oh, shut up!" Wilson said without any rancour.

Being nice and understanding wasn't getting them anywhere, it seemed. "You can't get her a ring," Pete said bluntly.

Wilson drew himself up defensively. "Why not?"

Sleep deprivation must have shrunk Wilson's brain. In his befuddled state he clearly needed the help of a neutral, clear-headed friend. "She's engaged to someone else, you dweeb! She can't accept a ring from you even if you disguise it as a present from Joel. If you want to entice her away from The-Love-Of-Her-Life into life-long bondage - for which, frankly, there is no reason whatsoever, now that you hold a hostage - you either split Amy and her fiancé up _before_ you make a move on her, or you make a move on her in order to split them up, but: you do not pop the question _until you have moved The Other Guy out of the picture_. Otherwise there'll be a Wilson-shaped blood stain on the sidewalk outside the attorney's office."

"Okay," Wilson said.

" _Okay?_ " Pete echoed, not quite believing that he'd managed to stop Wilson from committing matrimonial hara-kiri by the simple expedient of dropping a few choice words.

"You're right, this isn't the time for it," Wilson said, turning away from the display. His sideway glance at Pete was hooded.

Pete didn't like it, he didn't like it at all. But there wasn't much he could do other than catch up with a surprisingly sprightly Wilson as they returned to the car.

* * *

He was restless. It wasn't the upcoming conference; he'd done a few conferences now, tedious affairs admittedly, but no big drain on his mental resources. It wasn't the impending journey. His belongings were packed, as were some of Wilson's that he was 'borrowing': a tie in garish green with which he would dazzle all and sundry at the conference (especially hot, lonely women) and a pair of cuff links. Nor was it the case (or rather corpse) that he was dealing with as a consultant for forensic pathology back in London. He was nowhere near to resolving it - he had the faintest trace of a suspicion what the cause of death could have been - but that corpse wasn't going anywhere. It could wait.

He prowled uneasily around Wilson's apartment, not willing to depart but feeling out of place there. Other than the kiddy stuff that Wilson had unloaded rather haphazardly, there were few hints that Wilson was residing there and had been doing so for over half a year now. Everything was still pretty much the way it had been when Pete had first inspected the apartment before renting it from its absentee owners. Pete frowned at the Mark Rothko prints on the wall, the neat rows of books on oaken shelves, the Oriental rug on the wood-veneer floor. Wilson was a visitor here, an intruder; his sojourn here would leave less of a trace than a snake slithering over desert sand dunes. In a futile act of protest Pete moved the rug to the other end of the living room and then pushed the books haphazardly around on the shelves, ruining their alignment. It was too bad that he didn't have the time to switch the Rothko prints for something really trashy: a B movie poster or ... Rachel had a god-awful Harry Potter poster in her room. That would do.

He ran up the flights of stairs to the fourth floor and opened it with the spare under the doormat, but the moment he entered the hall he realised he wasn't alone. Lisa's head poked around the corner of the living room.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

Lisa's eyebrows rose. "I live here."

"It's only four o'clock. What happened to the concept of a full working day and your daughter's physio appointment?"

"I left early and Rachel doesn't have physio on Mondays." She glanced at her watch. "Do you want to leave already? I thought we'd leave in fifteen minutes."

"'We'?"

"We're dropping you off at the airport," Lisa said, smiling sweetly. "Didn't Wilson tell you?"

"' _We_ '?" Pete repeated with foreboding.

"I promised Wilson I'd take you. He said you made a big fuss about taking a cab - something about how Philadelphia cabbies cheat hapless disoriented sufferers of hippocampus injuries by driving around in circles before dropping them off at their destination." Her expression conveyed that her empathy was limited.

"Don't worry; I'll survive," Pete hastened to reassure her. They were on the same page; he'd only thrown a pity party to annoy Wilson, in which endeavour he'd succeeded admirably: Wilson had sworn revenge.

Lisa's expression was smug. "I'm sure you would, but unfortunately Rachel overheard Wilson's heartrending plea not to abandon you and is dead set on taking you there. I'll just call her and get Joel."

"The Howler?" This was a nightmare. "I thought Wilson was taking him to New York." Wilson had definitely left the apartment with Joel. Pete knew that because the little curtain climber had been bawling loud enough to rattle the window panes. The silence after they'd left had been blissful.

"I managed to convince Wilson that if he turns up at the attorney's stressed out because Joel cried all the way, then he'll not be particularly persuasive. He dropped him off at my office before leaving for New York."

Wilson hadn't mentioned any of this before leaving. Then again, the noise level had been such that normal conversation hadn't been possible. "He bought that?"

Lisa twirled a hand. "He bought it because it was the truth. Even if all Amy wants is a few papers signed, there are all kinds of custody arrangements. He needs his wits about him, not Joel screaming into one ear and the lawyer talking into the other, otherwise he'll end up giving Amy a mass of rights without establishing any boundaries."

So _this_ was Wilson's perfidious revenge: saddling him not only with Lisa, but with two kids in addition. Nice - but not good enough. Maybe Wilson could con Lisa into participating in his vile machinations, but he couldn't force Pete to get into a car with Ms Know-It-All, the Chatterbox and the Scream Machine. Pete pulled out his cell. "I'll take a taxi," he said with finality.

"Sure," Lisa said. She went to the couch, sat down comfortably with one foot tucked under her and picked up a magazine. Flicking randomly through its pages, she said without looking up, "We'll meet you at the check-in counter."

"Oh, don't bother, _please_ ," Pete said, bowing ornately in his best Count Olaf impersonation. "I really don't want to impose on you. We can say our goodbyes here. Or even better, we can skip them altogether. You can give the kids lots of kisses and hugs from Uncle Pete."

"It's no bother at all to bring a good friend like you his passport, which Wilson _unfortunately_ packed up along with the adoption paperwork," Lisa said, turning a page and perusing an article about skiing resorts with great interest. "He gave it to me when he dropped Joel off. I _think_ I left it in the car."

He supposed he could break into her car - how difficult could it be? - but there were times when mature, morally superior adults had to accept that giving in and allowing an opponent to believe they'd won was a better strategy than getting involved in endless childish squabbles. He put on an air of long-suffering, saying, "Oh-kay, get your brats and let's go."

Lisa smiled as she tossed the magazine back on the coffee table and untangled her legs. "Get your baggage," she said. "We'll meet up at the car."

"Joel doesn't cry so much when he's with us," Rachel observed with a smidgen of pride as they pulled into the airport parking lot.

"He probably likes car rides," Lisa said, braking at the ticket machine.

"According to Wilson, he bawled all the way from New York to Philadelphia," Pete contradicted her, "and also on the drive to the shopping mall this morning."

"See?" Rachel crowed. "He's fallen asleep already. He likes us."

"He's tired now, that's all," Lisa said.

"No," Pete said slowly, making a quick mental comparison of Lisa and Wilson and their respective cars. "It's your car."

"Wilson's car is a lot quieter," Lisa pointed out.

Indeed, it was: Wilson's brand new, well-sprung Toyota Prius accelerated silently in electric mode and moved smoothly and quietly. "It's _too_ quiet," Pete explained. "Your car chugs along; you can _feel_ the strokes and every bump in the road. Same with how you carry the croaker: Wilson tries to move seamlessly, whereas you stride like you're late for a meeting. Some guys like it rough," he concluded, leering at her. "I guess this guy is one of them."

He got out and lifted his suitcase out of the trunk, then he took Rachel's wheelchair out while Lisa unbuckled Joel's car seat.

"So I should advise Wilson to bounce him more," she said, clipping the seat into the frame of the stroller.

Pete shrugged. "He needs a nanny, not a strategy." He pushed the wheelchair to the rear passenger door, opened it and bowed to Rachel. "Your carriage awaits, milady."

"You think he isn't up to this?" Lisa asked, watching as he helped Rachel to slide from the car into the wheelchair.

"Parenting isn't rocket science." He paused for effect. "It's a war against terrorism. One side has to stick to the Geneva convention while the other burns, loots and pillages. Parents don't win this war by deciding a battle or two in their favour, but by holding out the longest, regardless of losses. Wilson got a good pounding before the war even started, what with his thymic carcinoma and the liver transplant, while Li'l Bin Laden here has been chillaxing in his personal whirlpool for nine months. Wilson needs to call in the Blue Berets before he's annihilated."

"Don't call Joel ... _that_!" Lisa admonished him, looking around furtively. "We'll have the CIA and the NSA on our backs."

"What's terrorism?" Rachel asked loudly.

"Let's change the topic before we all end up interred in Guantanamo," Lisa said.

"Chicken!" Pete taunted her.

"Go on, make bomb jokes during the security control, but don't get me involved. Rachel, don't go ahead; stay with us. Drivers of cars reversing out of parking spaces won't see you."

They made it to the check-in counter without being apprehended by security, losing Rachel or waking the scream machine. Now if he could get Lisa to feed him, this whole family excursion thing might actually pay off. As if on cue Lisa said, "I have to get Rachel something to eat. Do you want anything?"

"Fries. A reuben." He wondered how far he could push this. "A mocha grande. And a candy bar."

"Rachel?"

"I'm not hungry. Can I go and watch the airplanes?"

Lisa sighed. "Okay, but don't complain later that you're hungry." While Rachel whirled off to the glass front overlooking the runway Lisa turned back to Pete. "Keep an eye on Joel, will you? There's a bottle in the diaper bag in case he gets hungry."

He cocked an eyebrow at her departing form, not so much because he wanted to check out her ass (although it was a very nice ass), but because Someone had a very obvious agenda. Sure enough, Lisa stayed away for so long that the grub got restless. And voluble. And generally pissy. Pete hitched a foot under the rear axle of the stroller and jiggled it to and fro, but the effect wasn't quite what he desired. A nosy old busybody sitting diagonally across from him glared at him over her reading glasses. The businessman two seats down closed his laptop, got up and moved to the furthest end of the row.

"Maybe he's hungry," a soft voice suggested. It belonged to a woman in her forties with myopic eyes and faded skin.

"Maybe I bite," Pete rejoined. The woman backed away.

Lisa returned with a tray which she hastily dumped on his lap, shaking her head at him as she snatched up Joel. The brat latched onto the bottle straightaway. "Can't you act your age for once and feed the boy? This isn't some kind of pissing contest, you know."

He noted that she was too clever to call the DNA carrier his son. "I did act my age. _I_ wasn't the one screaming because I was hungry; _he_ was," he protested, pointing an accusing finger at the infant, who was making little slurping noises.

Lisa fed and burped Joel while he munched meditatively on his fries, wondering what she'd try next to get him to bond with the kid.

"Where's Rachel?" she asked presently.

He shrugged; he hadn't seen her since she'd taken off for the panoramic windows overlooking the runway. Lisa craned her head, then she got up to look around, and finally she stood on tiptoe.

"She can't go far; she's in a wheelchair," Pete pointed out. Lisa glared at him. "And no one is going to kidnap a crippled kid," he added reassuringly. "It's too much of a hassle and too obvious. She'd show up on every surveillance tape. Besides, who wants a cripple?"

Lisa thrust Fartface at him. "Here, hold him while I find Rachel."

He waggled his index finger at her. "Oh, you!" he said, grinning appreciatively. "You never give up, do you?"

Her glare as she pulled Joel back towards herself was withering. She slung Joel over her shoulder and headed for the panoramic windows (granting him another excellent perspective on that swaying booty), muttering something that sounded like 'infantile' or 'denial'. Either fitted, he supposed. He wasn't exactly proud of his behaviour, but the situation was - what it was. Wilson would raise the kid painstakingly well, better than he ever could. What Lisa wanted was stupid and would just cause confusion. She of all people should know that biological ties were overrated.

His respite was over far too soon: Lisa returned with a chastened Rachel in tow, the boy drooling all over her shoulder, her stance combative. "You can choose," she said. "Do you want to change Joel's diaper or take Rachel to the book store?"

"He pooped," Rachel supplied. "Now he smells bad."

"Thank you, Rachel, but that was unnecessary," Lisa said.

"What a difficult choice!" Pete murmured. "Which of these pleasures shall I forgo? Can I decide before my flight leaves?"

Lisa grabbed the diaper bag and stalked off, leaving him with Rachel. "I guess that means you're supposed to take me to the book store," Rachel said.

"Lead the way," he said resignedly.

The book store was an easier deal than he'd reckoned. Rachel wheeled herself through the store, attracting quick furtive stares from other customers. Whenever she stretched out for something that was beyond her reach, someone nearby would discreetly hand it to her. She breezed through the store like a queen touring her empire, surrounded by minions whose ministrations she received as her due. Pete watched her progress for a while before he turned his attention to the bestsellers lined up near the store's entrance. Did the world really need another book on emotional intelligence? He browsed through the books on display, reading a back cover here and a few pages there. Then he went outside and sat down in front of the only entrance to the book store; there was no way Rachel could abscond without being spotted. A few minutes later Lisa joined him.

"She's in there," he volunteered. "And no, I don't want to hold him, but thanks for asking."

Lisa regarded him with exasperation. "Fine," she said. "Pretend that it makes no difference whether he's your son or Wilson's."

He knew it was hopeless, but he tried nevertheless. "Damn right, it makes no difference. Tons of kids grow up without their biological parents and ..."

She interrupted him mercilessly. "Do you know how often you came into my office ranting that you couldn't get a decent patient history because nothing was known about the patient's biological parents? Or because the alleged father wasn't the biological one, so that you couldn't get the information you needed about possible hereditary conditions?"

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "That isn't a problem in this case. Should a medical emergency ever arise, _you_ know who the biological father is. In fact, you know more about my medical history than I do."

"Look what I've found." Rachel's wheelchair bumped into his shin. She held out a book which he took automatically, turning it over to read the back cover, grateful for the interruption to his rather one-sided conversation with Lisa.

" _Serena is in her junior year at Dracul High, the top school for budding young vampires. She's pretty and she's popular; she's got the boys in her year twisted around her little finger. She could be having the time of her life if only there weren't Jacob, the mysterious loner whose face haunts her dreams, but whose girl she can never be. Because Jacob is a werewolf; at night, when Serena and her friends rise from their coffins, he turns into a marauding beast. Can he and Serena ever be united?_ " Beneath this gripping summary was the usual assortment of fake critiques: _A mesmerizing read!_ said the Publisher's Weekly, while the Holtville Tribune thought the protagonists were _a modern Romeo and Juliet_. The Brawley Standard hailed Melanie Robbins as the next Stephenie Meyer.

Pete raised a disdainful eyebrow at Rachel. "Child," he intoned, "you have left the true faith of Potterdom and have allowed the base heresy of vampire tales to besmirch the purity of your heart. Renounce these false teachings ... ."

"No, no!" Rachel, used to ignoring whatever she couldn't understand, interrupted him. "Look at the picture on the front."

He turned the book over. The front depicted a pale girl with soulful violet eyes lying in the arms of a youth with shaggy black hair and eyebrows. The predominant hues were violet-blue and black with splotches of silver. "No Michelangelo, the artist," Pete remarked, still not getting what had attracted Rachel's attention. "And I doubt your mother wants you to read this. It's aimed at _big_ girls who know all about unrequited love and sparkly vampires and S-E-X."

"Pete!" Lisa said.

"He looks like Wilson," Rachel said, still ignoring him and pointing at the figure who presumably represented the tragic Jacob. "Look at the eyebrows."

It was true; the male figure on the cover bore an uncanny resemblance to what Wilson must have looked like some twenty-five years ago, but then, thickening any dark-haired guy's eyebrows into a shaggy mess would probably have that effect.

"Do you think Wilson is a werewolf?" Rachel asked, grinning impishly.

Pete gave this more consideration than the question merited. Superficially Wilson was more of a cuddly puppy: eager to please, adaptable, a favourite of lonely old ladies (and young ones too). On Pete's two trips with Wilson he'd watched him treat waitresses, hotel staff and gas station attendants with unfailing courtesy. His mask, if it was one, hadn't slipped once, neither when drenched to his underwear on the banks of a cold English pond nor when receiving a shattering diagnosis in front of a roomful of medical hopefuls.

It wasn't a mask, Pete decided. People who wore masks did so of their own volition; they were free to discard them as they pleased. Wilson didn't have that choice; he was trapped in his public persona until uncontrollable forces caused him to break out. But what lay under Wilson's smooth surface: a deep dark pool or a mere shallow puddle? Pete was sure it was the former. Those flashes of quick intelligence, that sardonic sense of humour, the accurately placed jabs, all testified of a petroleum reservoir buried deep under layers of rock: compressed energy, volatile and highly inflammable. He'd love to witness Wilson in action, losing his cool and allowing the forces within him to break free.

Rachel was still waiting for an answer. "Not a werewolf," he said to her. "More of a werecorgi." He returned the book to her.

"Werecorgi? What's that?"

"Were _wolf_ ; were _corgi_ ," Pete spelled out. "Same concept, different animal."

"Oh." Rachel digested that. "Do they really exist?"

Pete face-palmed. "Do werewolves exist?" he asked.

Rachel grinned. "No. But I've never heard of werecorgis. Why's he a werecorgi?"

"Because he'll snap at your ankles, but he won't go for your carotid." He tapped his throat so that he wouldn't have to explain 'carotid' next.

"Rachel, I think the salesperson would like you to take the book back into the store," Lisa said. "You haven't paid for it, after all. Why don't you look for a book about dogs so we can decide which breed to get?"

Rachel nodded obediently and put the book on her lap.

"Rottweiler," Pete mouthed. "Pit bull."

"Shut up, Pete," Lisa said.

Grinning, Rachel turned her wheelchair towards the store.

"Oh, Rachel," Lisa suddenly said. "Would you like to meet Simon this weekend?"

Rachel's smooth movements hitched. "No!"

Lisa smiled mirthlessly at her back. "Why not? You haven't seen him for ages," she said.

Rachel accelerated to reach the sanctuary of the book store. "I hate Simon!" she called back without turning around.

Lisa turned towards Pete, her expression yelling, _See?_ "You know why she hates him?"

"Because he's a douche?" Pete surmised.

Lisa had this look that she got when she mentally counted till ten - or a hundred, depending on the level of provocation. He had no idea why she felt provoked, but there it was and he'd have to weather it.

"Because," Lisa enunciated slowly, "he doesn't care a hoot about her and he can't be bothered to pretend that he does."

Pete sighed. He didn't really hope that he could keep the boy's parentage a secret forever, not with Lisa in the know and Amy suspicious, but it would be helpful if neither of them played whistle blower in his absence. Amy was a minor hazard; as long as she had no DNA of his she had no proof, and there was a good chance that she'd prefer not to know for sure what an idiot she'd been. Lisa, however, was an entirely different proposition. He'd badly misjudged her stance on parentage. He'd assumed that she considered it a good thing that Rachel's cop-out of a dad didn't interfere in parenting issues; it hadn't occurred to him that she was taking Rachel's birth father's reluctance to come up to scratch as a personal insult to her precious baby.

"Trust me, this kid will blame me for screwing up his life regardless of whether I raise him or Wilson does. But here's the thing: I _know_ he'll have a better life with Wilson than with me, so I can take his hate. I'm okay with it. I'll die happy knowing that my kid had the best childhood I could give him - with Wilson."

He leaned back, proud to have dealt with the issue impartially and logically, but Lisa's expression told him that he'd walked straight into some kind of trap. Her eyes were glinting and a smug little smile graced her lips.

"So ... you're okay if he hates you?" she asked.

"We'll be done quicker if you don't quote everything I say back at me," he said, squinting at the departure board. Oh goody, his gate was finally up. He stood up and grabbed his backpack. "Gotta go."

Lisa stood up too. "What if he isn't okay hating you?" she said.

He should have run for that gate five minutes ago. "Love, hate - they're both legit emotions. There's no reason to laud one and condemn the other. He'll be okay hating me if you don't talk him into believing that hating me is wrong."

Lisa poked a finger in his chest. "Her hate is eating Rachel up; she's miserable because she believes that there's something intrinsically wrong with her. Sometimes she thinks it's because her mother died when she was born, sometimes she blames her disability. Maybe, _maybe_ , she knows on some level that it's all Simon and has nothing to do with her, but there's a huge part of her that believes that if she were different somehow, he'd care for her. I'm fine with her hating him; what is breaking me is that it's making _her_ miserable. It's causing her to doubt her own worth, and I hate him for that!"

She turned away from him, biting her lower lip; he could see the slight tremor running along her upper one. "Rachel, come here please. Pete has to leave now."

While they waited for Rachel, Lisa put the rugrat back into the stroller. As they went to the security area, Pete said to Rachel in a stage whisper, "Don't make bomb jokes!"

"Rachel, let's say goodbye to Pete here before he gets into trouble," Lisa said.

"Bye, Pete," Rachel said dutifully. "Mom, will you buy me a book about dogs?"

Lisa rolled her eyes at Rachel. Then she fastened the brakes of the stroller; surely she didn't expect him to hold the kid or something? No, she reached up around his neck and gave him a quick hug. He returned it awkwardly. "When will you come again?" she said.

"Dunno." He scratched his eyebrow, going through a mental catalogue of his professional commitments. "Six weeks? Think you can keep your mouth shut in front of Wilson for that long?"

For the first time since Lisa had found out about how he'd scammed Amy, she gave him a genuine smile. "Yeah, that sounds great."

He gave her a fleeting nod and made for the security gate without giving her a chance to sneak in another hug.

He was putting his keys and his wallet back into the pockets of his jeans when his phone vibrated, indicating an incoming message. He opened it: it was a picture of Joel in his stroller, grinning toothlessly at the camera. Seriously? Did Lisa believe he'd show it round to his colleagues, saying, "Hey folks, this is my kid"?

He looked at the picture. There was nothing special about it, just your standard infant with no hair or teeth or any other defining feature. It left him indifferent. There was no way he'd use the picture as a screen saver or a background. Shouldn't he feel _something_? He was programmed to ensure the survival of his genes, the way Amy was, so maybe ... maybe his lack of feelings indicated that his son's well-being was best served by his not being involved in any way.

_Nice try, House,_ he could practically hear Wilson say, _but you're looking for an excuse not to get invested because you're scared. You're scared that you'll get hurt._

'And what's so great about getting hurt, huh? Been there, done that, don't need it again,' he answered the phantom in his head, remembering Gail with that sickening jolt that always moved right down his digestive tract whenever he thought about her.

_Refusing to bond with people for fear of getting hurt is like not tasting a new dish because you mightn't enjoy it,_ his Wilson-voice said.

'Or like refusing chemo for thymoma because it mightn't work,' he muttered in reply, earning weird looks from the people around him. He supposed he deserved them: the guy to whom he was talking was a hundred miles away in New York. Correction: the guy to whom he was talking only existed in his head. Wilson, the real Wilson, luckily didn't have an inkling of his supposed child's convoluted parentage.

'Convoluted'? He was kidding himself; there was nothing convoluted about Joel's parentage. He, Pete, was the biological father, Amy the mother. The child would now grow up with Wilson and presumably Lisa. Simple, really. He slipped the phone into his jacket and looked around for his gate. There it was, the two green lights on the display blinking reassuringly next to the destination 'London-Heathrow', his Wardrobe into a safer, better world.

His phone buzzed again. If Lisa was going to swamp him with pictures, he'd have to put a stop to it. He pulled his phone out to send her a pesky message telling her to keep her snapshots to herself, but found himself staring at a message from Wilson instead.

_Papers are signed. I'm Joel's legal parent and primary custodian!_

Oh, okay ... Great ... Nice for Wilson.

He pulled up the picture of Joel again. The kid with those smooth, nondescript features was now officially Wilson's son.

"Good for you, kid," he said to the picture. His thumb moved to 'Options' and from there to 'Delete file'.

_Are you sure you want to delete this file?_ his phone enquired.

His thumb hovered over the _Yes_ button. He could delete the picture (and any further pictures that Lisa sent him), but that wouldn't change the facts.

He slowly moved his thumb over to _No_ and pressed the button. After a moment's hesitation he typed 'thx', and sent the message to Lisa before he could change his mind. Then he switched off the phone and strode towards the gate.

* * *

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to menolly_au who nurtured this little cuckoo from the moment I dumped it into her nest until it was ready to fly.


End file.
